From: Frederik Vanrenterghem Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2024 09:13:17 +0000 (+0800) Subject: Voeg post ivm het schrijven van notities toe. X-Git-Url: http://git.vanrenterghem.biz/www2.vanrenterghem.biz.git/commitdiff_plain/a86a936d7b444f4a7b925b4bf4306883fe73cf99 Voeg post ivm het schrijven van notities toe. --- diff --git a/source/posts/on_writing_notes.org b/source/posts/on_writing_notes.org new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2deed9 --- /dev/null +++ b/source/posts/on_writing_notes.org @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +#+title: On writing notes +#+date: <2024-03-30 Sat 16:40> +#+filetags: :personal knowledge management:notes: + +Over the month of March, my interest veered to the area of personal +knowledge management. This was triggered reading a blog post by [[https://markbernstein.org/][Mark +Bernstein]]. He is the author of a software tool called [[http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/][Tinderbox]]. The +post linked to a [[https://forum.eastgate.com/c/videos-to-help-you-get-started/17][series of videos]] where users of the tool explain how +it helps them in their endeavours. The one by [[https://forum.eastgate.com/t/tinderbox-meetup-video-saturday-october-14-stacey-mason-on-goal-setting-and-management-with-tinderbox/7042][Stacey Mason on goal +setting]] was inspiring - so cool to see how someone is able to set +goals for both her professional and her personal life and use those to +improve her relationships, her career and general wellbeing. Maybe the +most convincing about the whole concept is seeing it in action on this +forum. Not only is the video of the event available, but key quotes +are also extracted and resources like books, videos or websites to +review are there to immediately go deeper or further into a subject. + +As suggested in another one of these videos, I read Building a Second +Brain by Tiago Forte. It's an easy read without a lot of references +all over - just a convincing argument made by someone who's been +helped by extending his mind through notekeeping. My curiousity at +that point was sufficiently high to decide to give regular note +writing a try. + +This decision resulted in a slight detour trying to understand which +methodology I should adopt, and what tool to use. Keeping in mind the +advice that these questions are of secondary importance, I tried to +not go too deep in the rabbit hole this obviously proved to be. + +The research however resulted in another pleasant discovery: +[[https://protesilaos.com/][Protesilaos Stavrou's website]]. Prot as he's known to his friends and +everyone else is the author of the [[https://protesilaos.com/emacs/denote][denote.el]] Emacs package. This is +the tool I have selected for now, as it is very easy to get started +with, doesn't impose a particular folder structure on where to keep +notes, and by default uses org-mode as file format for its +notes. Prot's a bit of a wizard when it comes to Emacs, and also +possesses the great quality of being an excellent tutor. His videos +are fantastic to get better use out of Emacs - I recommend giving one +a watch. + +With a notekeeping system that transcends a journal, the aim of +writing is not only to offload ideas onto paper. It is key to also +have an ability to refer back to what is written, and be able to build +out a train of thought. The idea has been around for ages - John Locke +(the 'Father of Liberalism') already wrote about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book][Commonplace books]] as +they were called back in 1685! In more recent times, the slipbox, or +[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten][Zettelkasten]] as it's known in the knowledge management world, was +found to be a superior system to combine and expand a knowledge +base. In current times, software tools like Tinderbox, [[https://roamresearch.com/][Roam]] and +various others have made it even easier to be able to trust that what +you write down can be retrieved again in the future with minimal +effort, and can be combined with other parts of your knowledge base +through dynamic search and filter functionalities. + +In the limited time I've been focusing on writing notes on matters +that picqued my interest, I have noticed an immediate improvement in +the completeness of the evaluation of the subject I touch. The simple +action of writing down my thoughts is helping me to look at them from +various angles much more easily than before. I am curious to find out +how this will evolve once I amass a wide enough number of notes to be +able to start linking them together, as that's what is supposed to be +*the reason* to take notes in a structured fashion - *build insights* +through combining thoughts and ideas that otherwise are fleeting or +remain isolated.