While I’ve been playing around with a few different note-taking tools over the past year, I’ve decided to just settle into Obsidian largely for the full ownership it gives you (as I shared here a few years ago).
The tool is not the point of this post, though, and it’s more about how the tool is used. I recently came across a quote from Richard Feynman that I thought summed things up very well, where he said:
“Notes aren’t a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking progress”
My only disagreement with him is that it’s some of both. In order for notes to help with my thinking progress, they also need to be a record of previous thoughts, discoveries, and citations. It’s similar to Blair Enns’ idea of “thinking through my fingers“.
My notes have a ton of recording of my thinking process, but the real magic is when they become my thinking process. Most ideas for this blog come from my notes, where two ideas come together that I hadn’t previously considered, which is why I try to pour so much into them. The more I put in, the more I get out.
What are you using these days for managing your notes, ideas, and thinking?
Feynman was an amazing thinker. I wish I could get more input from him in fewer words!
Like you, I think by writing. I pray by writing! Way too much of the email I receive is from myself because I dictated a thought for later review. My challenge, which you and I have discussed before, is that I don’t have just one system. It’s not a matter of settling on just one note taking system (I’m still in two), but it’s also all the stuff saved in email, in photos, in contacts, in tasks, in my calendar, and probably more. If I’ve read a book, I want all of it’s content to be available to me.
This is where I want a next AI solution. I want AI to be my reference librarian. “What was the name of that restaurant where I met with Mickey and I had BBQ?” (and when was that?) Here’s the thing: I have all that information! I just don’t know where. I probably even have a picture of the menu.
I can’t imagine how Feynman kept up with his notes. They were all paper! We have such an advantage. Right?
This is partly why I’ve settled on Obsidian. I’ve tinkered with a lot of systems over the years, but I’m settling on the one that gives me the most control over my notes (and therefore should last the longest into the future).
As for the AI reference librarian — yes! It seems we’re getting closer (Claude has some new features that can reference calendar and email stuff), but it’s still far from where it will be. I try to cram as much as I can into Obsidian so that I have a single source of truth, but like you I also have a ton of stuff in email, calendar and photos. Not sure how to resolve that, other than to wait for the magical AI reference librarian to be created!
Have not explored Obsidian yet, but will do so now! Thank you : )
Just stumbled onto your website while doing project research for a luxury hopitality brand decidely fixated on the idea of a ‘virtuous cycle.’ My friend Perplexity brought me here.
Oh nice, good to know! Thanks for visiting.
Thank you for putting into words what’s careening around the inside of my head because I’m unable to find myself in a position to have One Final Place for everything that is accessible to me at all times. My therapist is having a field day trying to help me!
Love the idea of an AI reference librarian. Currently, I have a half-dozen or more notebooks of varying size and purpose, Notes on my phone (app), audio recordings (Rev is one of my favorites for quick audibles when I think of the sentence that will later become an essay or blog), Google docs, Word docs, and the list never ends. What will be call our reference librarian? EEAAO (Everything, Everywhere, All at Once). Oops, that’s been taken…
LL
That AI Reference Librarian will be awesome when it gets here, for sure! While it’s indeed been taken, I love the idea behind EEAAO.