A defining idea in this space is “Your memory works my association, get your note taking to mirror that.” A simple version of this is what you have in a wiki. Every concept mentioned that has it’s own page has a link to it. I’m a big fan of graph visualizations of information, and you could imagine looking at a graph of your personal wiki where edges are links. Roam embraces links with memory, all your notes know if they’ve been linked to and display this information. My idea for a memex tool to make really interesting graphs is to basically giving you free reign to make the type system of your nodes and edges, and give your really good filtering/search capacity on that type system. Basically a dope gui/text editor overtop of neo4j.
Personal Lit review
This is one way I frame what I want to myself. Sometimes I go “Okay, I want to rethink how I orient to loose-tie friendships.” Then I remember that I’ve definitely thought about this before, but can’t remember what I thought. This is the situation where I’d want to do a “lit review” of how I’ve attacked this issue in the past, and move forward in light of my history.
Just-in-time ideation
I take a shit ton of notes. Some are notes on what I’m reading, others are random ideas for jokes, projects, theories, arm chair philosophizing. Not all ideas should be, or can be acted upon right away, or at all (like “turn Spain into a tortilla”). But there is some possible future situation where it would be useful to have this idea brought to mind. My ideal memex would actually be a genie that remembers everything I’ve thought and written, follows me around, and constantly goes, “What would be useful for Hazard to remember right now?” This can be acted on in how you design your notes. Think, “What sort of situation would it be useful to remember this in? In that situation, what key words and phrases will be in my head? Include those in this note so they’ll pop up in a search for those keywords.”
Low friction capture everything
If you get perfectionist with your notes, you lose. This frame imagines your mind as a firehose of gold, and you want to capture all of it, and sort out what’s good later. Record all ideas, no matter how crackpot. Carry a notebook, put your note taking app on your homescreen, set up your alexa to dictate notes, do whatever it takes. One principle that comes out of this frame is to be lax on hierarchy and organization. It should be as easy as possible to just capture an idea, with no regard for “where it goes”. If I have to navigate a file tree and decide where a doc/note/brainstorm goes before I’ve even gotten it out, it might die. The extreme end is NO organization, all search. Tiago doesn’t like that and suggests “no org on capture, and opportunistically organize and summarize and combine overtime”.
Put EVERYTHING in your memex
This is embraced by Andrew Louis. This is also embraced by Notion, they want to me the one app you put everything in. I don’t necessarily want on application that can do it all (text, tables, video, blah blah blah), but I DO want one memex command center where the existence of all data and files are recorded, and you can connect and interlink them. This is sorta like tagspace, they are a literally a wrapper around your file system, letting you tag, navigate, and add meta data to files for organizational purpose. I would LOVE if I had one “master file system memex”, special features for text editing, and then specific applications in charge of any more specialized functionality.
Concepts and Frames
Association, linking and graphs
A defining idea in this space is “Your memory works my association, get your note taking to mirror that.” A simple version of this is what you have in a wiki. Every concept mentioned that has it’s own page has a link to it. I’m a big fan of graph visualizations of information, and you could imagine looking at a graph of your personal wiki where edges are links. Roam embraces links with memory, all your notes know if they’ve been linked to and display this information. My idea for a memex tool to make really interesting graphs is to basically giving you free reign to make the type system of your nodes and edges, and give your really good filtering/search capacity on that type system. Basically a dope gui/text editor overtop of neo4j.
Personal Lit review
This is one way I frame what I want to myself. Sometimes I go “Okay, I want to rethink how I orient to loose-tie friendships.” Then I remember that I’ve definitely thought about this before, but can’t remember what I thought. This is the situation where I’d want to do a “lit review” of how I’ve attacked this issue in the past, and move forward in light of my history.
Just-in-time ideation
I take a shit ton of notes. Some are notes on what I’m reading, others are random ideas for jokes, projects, theories, arm chair philosophizing. Not all ideas should be, or can be acted upon right away, or at all (like “turn Spain into a tortilla”). But there is some possible future situation where it would be useful to have this idea brought to mind. My ideal memex would actually be a genie that remembers everything I’ve thought and written, follows me around, and constantly goes, “What would be useful for Hazard to remember right now?” This can be acted on in how you design your notes. Think, “What sort of situation would it be useful to remember this in? In that situation, what key words and phrases will be in my head? Include those in this note so they’ll pop up in a search for those keywords.”
Low friction capture everything
If you get perfectionist with your notes, you lose. This frame imagines your mind as a firehose of gold, and you want to capture all of it, and sort out what’s good later. Record all ideas, no matter how crackpot. Carry a notebook, put your note taking app on your homescreen, set up your alexa to dictate notes, do whatever it takes. One principle that comes out of this frame is to be lax on hierarchy and organization. It should be as easy as possible to just capture an idea, with no regard for “where it goes”. If I have to navigate a file tree and decide where a doc/note/brainstorm goes before I’ve even gotten it out, it might die. The extreme end is NO organization, all search. Tiago doesn’t like that and suggests “no org on capture, and opportunistically organize and summarize and combine overtime”.
Put EVERYTHING in your memex
This is embraced by Andrew Louis. This is also embraced by Notion, they want to me the one app you put everything in. I don’t necessarily want on application that can do it all (text, tables, video, blah blah blah), but I DO want one memex command center where the existence of all data and files are recorded, and you can connect and interlink them. This is sorta like tagspace, they are a literally a wrapper around your file system, letting you tag, navigate, and add meta data to files for organizational purpose. I would LOVE if I had one “master file system memex”, special features for text editing, and then specific applications in charge of any more specialized functionality.