[allenu]

I also think we consume more information that we need. I think we also tend to overvalue getting that information and retaining it. The HN crowd is biased towards analysis and information, but just look at the abundance of note-taking systems posted.

I used to store as much info as I could somewhere (a personal wiki) but over the years I realized there's just too much there and most of it I never need, and if I do need something, I can look it up again anyway.

I think it's possible to become something of an information pack rat. It's true that for me learning something new feels productive somehow, but if I were to be honest, most of the knowledge I seek out online doesn't really provide me with direct value. The act of seeking it out as well is time that could've been used to do something else.

[asdff]

The fetishism with notetaking is rampant, both on here and online. People make good money writing articles about the latest notetaking app and serving ads. Personally, I've never needed to crack open an old notebook after the relevant project has passed. I have a stack of them from college at my parent's house and they are simply collecting dust. Even if I had everything digital I would never feel the need to go back and sift through them since they are no longer relevant.

The act of taking notes with a pen and paper, to synthesize thoughts into symbols and sentence structures, is far more meaningful than looking at the note again imo.

[dorchadas]

> The act of taking notes with a pen and paper, to synthesize thoughts into symbols and sentence structures, is far more meaningful than looking at the note again imo.

Absolutely this. I'm working on teaching myself abstract math with help from a friend on Discord who has his PhD and is willing to check my proofs and such, and just the act of writing things down helps so much. Especially linear algebra, where I kept losing track of all the summations and what stood for what while I was just reading. Writing down the stuff, and adding my own annotations to the steps explicitly elucidating why a step was possible, did more for me than ever reading back over them did, though I do admit sometimes it helped if it was a fresh concept; but oftentimes, it was just the act of writing that did it for me.

[allenu]

That's how I treat note-taking today. I keep a physical notebook that I jot down ideas and draw diagrams in. It's sort of my canvas for sketching things out and seeing if I understand the problem and solution I'm working on.

Like you, I have a bunch of old notebooks as well that I only ever flip through for nostalgia. I generally only review my notebooks for design notes if the notes are at most 3-6 months old.

[rramadass]

>The act of taking notes with a pen and paper, to synthesize thoughts into symbols and sentence structures, is far more meaningful

Well Put!