notes

20200716231656-how_to_take_smart_notes.org

@@ -1 +1,20 @@
 #+title: How To Take Smart Notes
+* Chapter 1: Everything You Need To Know
+#+begin_quote
+I never force myself to do anything I don't feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do
+something else.
+
+- Niklas Luhmann, creator of [[file:20200716213755-zettelkasten.org][Zettelkasten]]
+#+end_quote
+
+The goal of a good note-taking process is to free yourself from the structures
+that get in the way of discovering and capturing ideas. This reminds me of [[file:the_zettelkasten_method_lesswrong_2_0.org][The
+Zettelkasten Method - LessWrong 2.0]], in which the author finds the linear
+approach of filling a whole page restricting, and instead prefers taking many
+/small/ notes and building connections.
+
+[[file:20200716214603-taking_better_notes.org][Taking better notes]] builds a knowledgebase which, as it builds in content and in
+trust, allows you to hold less in your head, freeing you up and improving focus.
+While my [[file:20200717223216-work_log.org][Work log]] does a good job of archiving what I've been up to, the handful
+of fuller, separate documents I occasionally write up tend to be more useful,
+and certainly easier to find what I need in.

20200717223216-work_log.org

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+#+title: Work log
+
+I keep a daily journal using [[file:20200710214307-org_mode.org][Org Mode]] of the things I do while working, tracking
+what I did, why, and how. I make generous use of executable code snippets to
+store what I run in the document alongside the results I get from them.
+
+While this is useful from a purely historical perspective, it's very hard to go
+back and find entries relating to particular issues or projects. Even when I can
+find entries, they tend to be extremely narrowly focused to the exact problem
+being tackled at the time, and as they're written in the heat of solving those
+problems, they don't tend to include much elaboration on the bigger picture.