I don't want to manage knowledge

Drawing on something DHH (37Signals) told me a couple of years ago, I’ve started keeping a single note called WHAT where I write down a handful of things I have to remember. The important bits will find their way back.

Every node that has utility—an interesting excerpt from a book, a pithy quote, a poem, a fiction fragment, a few sentences that are the seed of a future essay, a list of links that are the launching-off point of a project—is drowned in an ocean of banality. Most of our thoughts appear and pass away instantly, for good reason.

I’ve written something like six or seven personal wikis over the past decade. It’s actually an incredibly advanced form of procrastination

Second brain tools don’t guarantee that you’ll remember something. If you’re like a lot of people, what you put into those applications gets buried under strata of facts and information.

This is a widespread mistake among those who think that a sexy note-taking app like Roam will suddenly free their minds, or that they can train themselves into geniuses with enough spaced repetition, or that they can build a zettelkasten capable of thinking original thoughts for them.

It is simple: every note is either a problem or a solution.

A Problem note captures friction, confusion, contradiction, or an unresolved question.

A Solution note captures a method, principle, explanation, or reframing that addresses a specific issue.