best ways of structuring/organising info to find info you want near-immediately

Posted by nirans@gmail.com
Dec 5, 2019 at 01:09 AM

One thing that. I am realizing is that capturing information and putting information into a retrieval system should be two different activities. To reduce cognitive load, I am trying to just have one system where I can record my thoughts, so that I don’t lose them - capture beginning far more important than anything else. If you lose the thought, you have nothing to categorize. Retrieval and **processing** has to occur at another level. [Processing ](https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/) is far more than simply storing, it is digesting captured notes and ideas.

I wish I had one system where my ideas could simply live in neat organized categories. But, in Devonthink hold records - professional notes and technical insights, and things I want to reference (primaries references) - the danger is just because I have something does not mean I understand it. The Archive holds connected thoughts and musings(ideas spur other ideas because they are connected). IA Writer, in a repository for lager notes about courses, blog posts, and longer miscellaneous thoughts and writing. Scrivener is for even longer writing. NVAlt for little notes that I want to reference quickly - but just seem to float in space- notes for shopping, products, things for out and about with no lasting value. Things/Noteplan for tasks.

Then there are the thought processors - omnioutliner, iThoughts, Scapple, Tinderbox…sometimes Curio.

Maybe with something like Hook (still playing) things won’t get lost. That seems like a lot of apps when I look at the list - maybe there is something to be said about the plain text project.Org mode(Emacs) certainly looks interesting, and I have been playing with this for the last. few days instead of doing things - well there you go another app added to help me get “organized”.