[michaericalribo]

I’ve gone through phases of intense note taking and planning around organization.

At the end of the day, I find the overhead of highly structured notes gets in my way and distracts me from actually accomplishing anything using the notes. Obviously these systems work for some people! But I’ve found detailed engineering of knowledge doesn’t work for me...

What does work is a stripped down pair of tools: a) an inbox for capturing in-the-moment, which can be anything (a dedicated page in a notes app, my email inbox, a piece of paper); and b) a medium term “filing cabinet” for storing info for later (these days I use notion).

These let me not lose an idea, and reference it later. The key is having one default place to dump everything.

[shakezula]

I use a rough zettel method as well. I agree about the place to dump everything being the key. Too much structure gets in my way too, but the process of condensing and refining my notes into my zettel has been where some of my best ideas and insights have come when learning and/or creating and designing.

[michaericalribo]

That’s an important point!

I mostly just dump in ‘facts’—my frequent flyer number, gift ideas, recipes. It’s just an external drive for my memory...

But the active process of reflection and editing and synthesis based on actual notes...I completely miss out on that. It’s not a piece of tech, so much as a process.

It reminds me of the Cornell notes system [1]: take raw notes in the moment, then condense and summarize them later. Reviewing and refining force you to internalize the content, not just record it.

[1] http://lsc.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Cornell-No...

[shakezula]

Yes! The Cornell note method was a real game changer once i started using it. Wish I had found it earlier, honestly.