Summary of "How I Take (and Organise) My Notes As a Software Engineer"
Main recommendation / verdict
Use a hybrid workflow:
- Paper for fast capture and thinking.
- Notion for transactional/project work (content planning, collaborative tracking).
- Obsidian for long-term, personal knowledge storage (your “digital garden”).
- Use Matter and Readwise to collect highlights and funnel them into Obsidian.
- Back up Obsidian (iCloud, GitHub or Obsidian Sync).
Key products / tools (features, pros & cons, use cases)
1. Paper notebooks (Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917)
- Features: squared paper (good for diagrams/flowcharts), physical to-do lists, soft-leather cover preference.
- Pros: low friction, faster capture, encourages taking more notes.
- Cons: requires manual transcription for digital permanence.
- Use case: quick capture, meeting notes, running daily to-do list.
2. Pens / colors
- Use a range of colors to highlight, but in practice often use whatever is handy (e.g., Bic).
- Pen + notebook is preferred for ease and speed.
3. Notability
- Tried digital handwriting on iPad but it reduced note-taking frequency for this user.
4. Notion
- Features: kanban, calendar, multiple views, good mobile app, easy sharing.
- Pros: excellent for content/project tracking and collaborative workflows (YouTube/blog planning).
- Cons: proprietary (data ownership/export is clunky); not ideal for long-term knowledge retention in this workflow.
- Use case: transactional items—content backlogs, schedules, team sharing.
5. Obsidian
- Features: local Markdown files, plugins, cross-platform, graph of content, strong linking.
- Pros: you own your data (readable Markdown); good for permanent notes and an interconnected knowledge base.
- Cons: less polished; requires plugin setup/tinkering; backup responsibility.
- Backup approach: iCloud sync + GitHub backup; Obsidian also offers paid Cloud sync.
6. Matter (noted as “mata” in some subtitles)
- Features: save articles and tweets, expand Twitter threads, collect newsletters (via Gmail/email).
- Pros: centralizes authors/writers and their writings; makes highlights from web content and threads.
- Use case: capture web content and Twitter threads before pushing highlights onward.
7. Readwise
- Features: aggregates highlights from Kindle, physical books, and other sources; sends email summaries.
- Pros: periodic reminders of important highlights; exports and syncs with other apps.
- Integration: syncs highlights into Obsidian (the user’s inbox).
Workflow & organization
- Hybrid capture: write quick notes by hand; later type important notes into Obsidian.
- Two-app split:
- Notion = transactional / project content.
- Obsidian = long-term personal knowledge.
- Automation: Matter and Readwise collect highlights and forward them into Obsidian’s inbox for later processing.
- Search & triage flow: inbox → sort into folders / convert to small knowledge notes or archive/later.
Obsidian folder structure (7 folders)
- Inbox
- Where incoming highlights/notes land; needs sorting and triage.
- Projects
- One folder per active project (site redesigns, courses, etc.).
- Knowledge
- Permanent notes / digital garden; no subfolders; notes are small and interconnected; maps of content link related notes.
- References
- Comprehensive articles, book summaries, master course notes (later broken into knowledge notes).
- Archive
- Keep obsolete but possibly searchable notes here instead of deleting.
- Extras
- Attachments, templates, and other support files.
- Later
- Useful but not permanent highlights moved out of inbox until needed.
Note-writing style
- Keep permanent notes small (a few paragraphs), not monolithic blog posts.
- Adopt zettelkasten ideas + “Building a Second Brain” principles: atomic, linked notes that are easy to recombine.
- Convert inbox items into small knowledge notes, archive, or move to Later as appropriate.
Comparisons & rationale
- Physical notebooks vs fully digital (iPad/Notability): physical wins for speed and frequency of capture; digital handwriting decreased note-taking for this creator.
- Notion vs Obsidian:
- Notion: more polished and collaborative — great for planning and team sharing.
- Obsidian: better for ownership and future-proofing — Markdown files you control.
- Matter vs Instapaper: migrated to Matter because it expands Twitter threads and better handles newsletters and writer-centric feeds.
Pros (overall)
- Hybrid approach maximizes capture speed and long-term value.
- Obsidian provides data ownership and portability via Markdown.
- Notion excels for content/project workflows and sharing.
- Matter + Readwise automation reduces manual collection effort and surfaces memorable highlights.
Cons / caveats
- Maintaining Obsidian requires tinkering and backup discipline.
- Notion’s proprietary nature makes it risky as a single source of truth.
- Manual transcription from paper to Obsidian adds extra work.
- Inbox can grow large; regular triage and automation tuning are required.
Unique points / distinct takeaways
- Uses squared paper notebooks specifically for diagrams; keeps a running physical to-do list that colleagues add to.
- Prefers soft-leather cover notebooks (Moleskine/Leuchtturm1917).
- Keeps transactional content in Notion (plans that are rarely revisited); permanent knowledge goes to Obsidian.
- Emphasizes small, linked “permanent” notes (digital garden) over deep hierarchical subfolders.
- Draws on Building a Second Brain and zettelkasten ideas to shape folder strategy.
- Automations: Matter gathers web/tweet content and newsletters; Readwise aggregates highlights (including physical books) and emails summaries; both sync to Obsidian inbox.
- Backup strategy: use iCloud + GitHub for Obsidian files; Obsidian Sync is an optional paid alternative.
Speakers / viewpoint
- Single presenter: describes a personal workflow, explains tool choices and trade-offs, and demonstrates why a hybrid (paper + digital) setup works best for them.
Category
Product Review
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