Second Brain: Note taking, productivity, Notion, Airtable, Obsidian, Mondays, Asana etc

Vague question, looking for thoughts about all this stuff. Trying to solve several problems that may take several tools, but trying to limit how many tools that is.

Really two problems....

1. Second Brain, lots of youtube productivity hacker types and their systems for taking notes, categorizing them, turning them into to-dos.

2. Job tracking. Software/sites to track jobs, some are more glorified to-dos, some more tied into the quickbooks type world of invoicing, CRM, time tracking etc. Some better for teams.

So those are two things I've struggled with. The tools I tend to use include Apple Notes, Microsoft To-Do (which was previously Wunderlist, which was the most capable to-do app I'd used as far as subtasks), sometimes Google Docs and Sheets, and Airtable.

People LOVE Notion but it seems too complicated for me. Like you can "no-code" any kind of app or page you want, and there's templates but there's so many things that it intimidates me.

For my side-gig, I'm using Airtable. I do digital printing so I started a database of papers I use, database of clients etc, trying to sort out pricing and make a jobs database. The thing about airtable is how custom it can be. Like Mondays or Asana or Trello or whatever are built to be job trackers/project management but I couldn't easily connect the job to a database of which paper I used. Things that are very easy to customize in Airtable. I could build that in Notion, and Notion would allow me to add other things to make a nicer interface, but I think that would be more work?

I'm just too busy to spend a lot of time building this stuff, which is why I'm curious about more out of the box solutions like Mondays, also upclick. Then there's the more banking relating things like Honeybook, Bonsai, quickbooks. Less intensive project management but better financial tracking?

So yeah, trying to solve a few problems with as few tools as possible and wonder what people do. Some of these second brain youtubers are INSANE with their systems but they've introduced some interesting tools like Obsidian and Roam, which are more robust than just using Apple Notes for everything. I have taken a lot of notes into To Do but using something like Obsidian or Evernote seems smarter.

Wondering what thoughts/experiences people may have in any of this stuff? Preferences? Scrap it all? Currently despite access to all these tools, I'm most comfortable when I just take out a piece of paper at the beginning of the day and write down all the things I think I need to get done soon, and then during the day whenever I finish something or have a minute I look down and think ok, let me take care of one of these.

My personal preference is boring: physical notebooks and physical calendars. I’ll occasionally try software (e.g., Notion), but I always find software too inflexible.

Personally -- as in for just my work that doesn't involve sharing stuff with other people -- I am notepads + my beloved Slingshot day planner (typos and all). The physical act of writing stuff down with a pen or pencil helps me remember and focus.

One of my jobs uses Airtable, which I don't find very intuitive tbh, but I am learning it, because the people who aren't very tech-savvy are comfortable with it, and I am fairly good at picking stuff like that up? The main use of it is event management/booking ... and if there is a way to integrate it with financial tracking/invoicing ... I actually want to know and figure that out tbh, because one of my responsibilities is making sure the money is right.

I use Asana at work for basic task tracking and team meetings and it works pretty good. I’m not aware of any CRM integration but it’s fine for tracking projects. doesn’t require much set up and it’s easy to maintain.

Big fan of Dropbox Paper for notes, meeting minutes etc. It’s collaborative (if you want), shareable, accessible from any device, deliberately simple.

I am interested in project planning stuff.. task management, stuff like that. I’ve used Trello in the past but somehow it always fell into disuse

I have Trello trauma dating back to 2017.

This does seem like the kind of thing where you could keep notes on the pros/cons of each platform on some note-taking tracking platform of some kind...
(usually google sheets seems to be the winner on that front, though)

I don't use google sheets anymore since getting into Airtable. The ability to filter and group things is so amazing. I even did my taxes in Airtable. I downloaded CSV files from all my banks and accounts, opened them in google sheets to make sure they were consistent (had to move some columns around, delete columns etc), then opened them in Airtable which allowed me to create my own categories, label everything, group them etc.

Over the past week or so, I've been a test case for my university department's decision to adopt Smartsheet. It might have kind of a steep learning curve and depends on existing familiarity with spreadsheet software but it's pretty damn versatile based on my limited experience. Like I've already developed a workflow to automate a few time-intensive (and sanity-taxing) chunks of my job.

xp: from what i remember of using airtable, it was definitely a cleaner experience, but how do you find it for making impromptu ad hoc throwaway tables?

airtable is quick to build simple and clean tables.

And way better than smartsheet was. Smartsheet is def a spreadsheet on steroids, but airtable is a spreadsheet that turns into a relational database. I imagine smartsheet has built on some of those features, but when I was looking at it, it always looked like a spreadsheet.

Airtable has been working on their "interface designer" but it still needs work, and needs to deal with persmissions better so you can you make an interface and give access to it to people who aren't on airtable or in your team.

gonna spend my lunch watching a video about Tick Tick which is like a to-do app combined with a calender that automatically creates an eisenhower matrix for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ir6ABedHnc

the 4 archetypes of note takers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dDVtJ2sec

All my work-related notes, anything specific to a project, is in Google Docs. For this stuff having it be transparent and searchable and integrated with everyone else's work is most important. (Also, if it's confidential etc etc.)

Personal notes are split between nvUltra and Logseq. nvUltra sucks but I haven't found something better for plaintext notes in Mac yet.

Considering moving all my notes into Logseq but (1) it uses iClouds syncing, which has been unreliable (2) not sure I want everything in bullet points. There's something relaxing about a plain text canvas.

Oh and to the OP - Logseq is similar to Obisidian and Roam. I'm using like 5% of what it can do though. I'm skeptical of systems, I want it to be easy to enter notes and easy to search. Logseq does fine there, and being able to use nested bullets is nice. The daily journal thing in Logseq is nice as well.

xxp - "your notetaking style" -- involves making marks on paper -- though probably if I were to take this nerdery to the next level, I would find something with OCR and scan the pieces of scrap paper, envelopes, etc. that I use.

Everything in obsidian is a markdown txt file so easy to search and easy to keep.

this fucking guy has my number for sure.

"Sophisticated Procrastination"

i.e. not the procrastination where you're playing video games or reading comic books, the kind where you THINK you're doing work and being smart by organizing and planning and researching and COLLECTING and buying stuff all of which is supposed to make you a better creator/producer but you never actually DO the work. Where was this guy when I was 14?

He's directly talking exactly about this thread, but the way he talks about it is reflected in most facets of my life. "If I only had X synthesizer I'd start making music" is a classic example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baKCC2uTbRc

I'm not going to stop this second brain research but I think I'll just pick something and settle on it and try to be consistent.

I'm thinking of paying a friend of mine to finish my personal airtable to manage my side-gig, then picking one note taking tool to put everything in. If that's also a to-do list, great. Give me a month to organize all my data, that would be nice, but unlikely.

That's a great video - everyone here should watch it for the gut-check and re-evaluation of one's working habits.

iA Writer, FileMaker, and pencil/paper are still my top tools. I use Streaks as my nagging app, Timelime for billable hour tracking, and that's it. I feel like I should be using Obsidian, but I just can't connect with it. Lots of impressive screenshots on r/ObsidianMD, but recall that video - i can't tell if any of these complex systems are working effectively for them, or if it's no different than check out my desktop wallpaper.

Of course my bias is that I'm into my third decade with "FileMaker Developer" on my resume, so making my own custom db or workflow manager is faster for me to do than start over on something new.

(aside: 1 out of 3 FileMaker devs I know also work with Airtable. It's good if you have nothing and need to start with anything)

lol my co-worker is a master of sophisticated procrastination! ... meanwhile i am watching that video as unsophisticated procrastination lol

speaking as someone who may or may not be "Diamond Grandmaster Level 936" at Solitaire

Isn’t there a free FileMaker tier now or something? I keep meaning to see if I can use it to port my own hideously baroque note-taking Ruby app

I didn't realize until yr post that FileMaker still existed! I learned it back in the 90s because I worked in lol marketing.

I use Google Docs to write notes; Things to manage personal to-dos; TickTick to manage work to-dos; PDF Expert to make PDF annotations for schoolwork; and Scrivener to write essays and applications.

Each tool has a specific use, so it means I spend less time procrastinating and tidying things up when I'm using them.

I don't actually spend that much time re-reading my notes, so -- while it's tempting to try something like Obsidian and make a Complete Wiki of Me -- I don't feel like the ongoing upkeep would be worth it.

Notion and Trello are the devil, though.
I like using Jira as long as I don't have to manage it.

Isn’t there a free FileMaker tier now or something? I keep meaning to see if I can use it to port my own hideously baroque note-taking Ruby app

Claris Studio and Claris Connect have free levels - there's a big product shift going on as Claris steers the whole product line into being able to offer more Airtable-functions.

I'm so tied into Evernote that I don't think I can be arsed to change - even if most of my notes just sit there in the online equivalent of a box under the bed. The things I mainly use it for (a journal, keeping notes from/about texts, logging new words, ideas for things I'll never write) I could 100% use Google Docs or similar for. I use the web clipper, but not convinced I *ever* go back and use the articles I clip.

Obsidian looks great, though. I need/want someone to convince me it'll change my life.

I was a pretty heavy Evernote user until they got into making Evernote-branded Moleskine notebooks and when that CEO was fired, hired the failed Google Glass guy to run the place. I just had a vision of how I could recover if Evernote went Nevernote. Some company in Italy called Bending Spoons owns Evernote now. Consensus in r/Evernote is to have an exit strategy.

Short history:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/bending-spoons-acquires-evernote-marking-the-end-of-an-era/

Interesting, thanks for the heads up. They are relentlessly trying to get me to sign up for a paid account, which is fine as far as it goes, but they are properly pushing it at the moment. I'll have a look at how to export everything!

Love the idea of Obsidian but I use Evernote on my phone, mostly, and then Evernote web on work computer and home laptop. Syncing with Obsidian/mobile device looks like a pain in the arse (in the free version, anyway). Eh.

One thing I should added in my original post about using paper—when I finish a notebook, I drop it off at the university copy shop to be scanned and destroyed. The scan includes an OCR transcription. It isn’t perfect but it’s good enough for search (I just dump it in my iCloud Drive and use Spotlight to search).

ok that is genius

^

^^

xxp - "your notetaking style" -- involves making marks on paper -- though probably if I were to take this nerdery to the next level, I would find something with OCR and scan the pieces of scrap paper, envelopes, etc. that I use.

― sarahell, Thursday, June 29, 2023 11:16 AM (five days ago)

whoa, so etaeoe actually has taken this to the next level! Dammmmmmnnnnn

is OCR good enough now to make sense of scrawly handwriting? mine's pretty out there

i am assured that onenote is a game chamger for an outlook/microsoft house but ive yet to be converted

i use evernote on phone and laptop as needed for my daily lists and am still on tasks/pencil for work tho id dearly love a better way

I got really into one note and then I tried Notion and I hate it so I think I'm going back to one note. Somehow it's easier for me idk.

Notion is bad, but it's possible I only hate it because the manager who introduced it was the biggest arsehole I've ever met.

It does 86 things moderately well but nothing quite well enough. It is the ultimate "procrastination via tinkering" app, the ultimate makework generator.

I liked Evernote but could never get past its feeble PDF annotation tools.

I'm a big Obsidian user, for both personal knowledge management and work notes. I got into PKM using various wiki's in the 2000's but didn't really get into really linking everything together until I started using Roam several years ago. It was great! I was better able to make connections and it was my first exposure to unlinked mentions, which I found incredibly powerful for linking concepts, ideas, thoughts. However, Roam was expensive, sluggish, and I didn't trust the developer's roadmap at all.

So I dumped it for Craft, which was nice and polished, but feature limited. They promised tags for like 2 years but never delivered. I could see how it would appeal to a larger audience, but it wasn't enough for me. So I dumped it and by this time, the whole space had exploded with tons of options.

I settled on Obsidian, because it was free, very flexible, great developer community with a ton of useful plugins. Everything was markdown files, so I didn't have to trust that whatever service I was using would just stop one day. I use it for everything. I have a wardrobe inventory, home improvement projects, collecting full text articles and linking concepts, book and podcast notes, anything.

i feel like my first brain does all of these things well enough so that I don't need these things ... like, there are a lot of things wrong with my brain, but "personal knowledge management" is where my brain is a viking

I can see how this stuff would be really helpful for someone with ADHD tho

So on most computers nowadays, there's a /tmp directory that gets wiped on reboot, which as a side-effect makes it a good passive de-cluttering location for browser downloads -- if it's important enough for you to hang onto, you'd move it out of /tmp.

Are there any equivalent features in any of the note/organization apps/services -- like a disappearing scratchpad? Or is the idea of impermanence completely antithetical to what customers want?

I have a note just called "scratch" for this purpose, I wipe the previous contents every time I use it.

I have one too, but i uh... forget to ever delete anything.

compelling post from jeff im downloading now

I've downloaded Obsidian too and migrated a bunch of core notes from Evernote. Conscious that this could become an Obsidian thread* but... how many Vaults do you use, Jeff (or anyone else)? My instinct is to let them function like Notebooks in Evernote but just curious what someone else does.

*thread?

I just use two, personal and work. Personal syncs via iCloud so I can access on my Mac or my phone. Work one lives alone on my work laptop, no syncing because IT security would yell at me.

I don't know anymore. I've been watching some videos on my lunch break and just watching somebody using code and shortcuts to just make a to-do list in Obsidian, I don't know if I'm up for that.

I use Things, Scrivener, PDF Expert and Google Drive for schoolwork:

Things for to do lists
Scrivener for writing essays and keeping notes
PDF Expert for annotating PDFs
Google Drive for storing the PDFs

I’m wondering whether to swap out Scrivener for obsidian – would that make sense? – how is it with PDFs?

I guess the reason for swapping out is that I’ve come to find markdown a lot easier for getting stuff done quickly rather than fiddling with formatting on Scrivener. And my guess is that obsidian would make it easier to connect notes to each other with links, although sometimes I wonder if that’s just makework

stet have you moved off Workona? or are you using both?

I've messed around with Obsidian but it looks like 2002* and is way to complicated for my skillset and what I want it for.

*it reminds me of Audiogalaxy if anything.

I’m wondering whether to swap out Scrivener for obsidian – would that make sense? – how is it with PDFs?

I've been using Drafts lately for just quick notes and I really like it. Not as a long term organisation solution but as an upgrade over just opening a new file in whatever program happens to be in the foreground.

https://getdrafts.com

And yes it syncs to da cloudd

still getting agitated about this. basic feature requirements on phone:

opens to a screen with either available notes in a defined folder (icloud or sync of your choice) and a one-touch option to create a new note
or
open to a new note screen created in the defined folder with an easy way to get your existing notes

or both obv

notes shd be plain text or markdown

that’s it.

i will pay for it! tho not new simplenote sub prices.

if you're willing to negotiate on file formats, i feel like most people should solve this problem with the builtin notes app.

if not, i know a lot of people like bear. https://fsnot.es/ is maintained and free.

thanks caek yeah - non-proprietary format important to me. and bear (iirc) in common with many others doesn’t make it easy to just *open the app take a note and it saves in a place which will be reasonably quickly available on another device*

is it important for moral or technical reasons? i feel like the technical arguments for markdown are pretty weak _unless_ you want the ability to _edit_ the notes with an app other than notes (in which case fair enough).

plain text export will always be an option as long as apple exists. this isn't an evernote situation. and the deep integration makes "just write something down real quick" really quick compared to any other app.

obsidian is flexible and customizable to a fault and has about 500 ways to do quick entry via shortcuts etc. definitely worth looking into if you're going to go deep on the organization side of things.

moral reasons on markdown - and it’s not really markdown it’s txt with some simple formatting standards. distrust proprietary formats in the long run as more subject to commercial vagaries.

obsidian gets close but it feels fiddly on the phone and - sorry this isn’t very thought through - too much UI generally. i just want a scratch pad more that’s easy to bring up and easily available to stick in a note, which will be there on my laptop, whether it’s windows or apple.

caek you’ll be getting the thick edge of me being perhaps unreasonably crotchety about all this!

tho i have come out of extensive meetings today which largely involved “does doc 3456X-30 supersede 3390 or does it still reference it in which case do we need to deprecate 3390 or update or update it *and* deprecate it”

also, “is the only thing this document specifies the specification for an empty document?”

which was just delightful.

so i v much feel standards deprecation and interoperability atm i guess!

dizzy dizzles I think I mentioned this on another thread but what has been working for me is Drafts. if i’m understanding your, ah, problem space correctly then it may be the thing you’re after:

https://getdrafts.com

ohh maybe that doesn’t work if you’re on a PC sometimes :(

oh and yeah doesn’t save as text files n/m

i have tried drafts but i’m not quite sure it has the “thing pops up, take note, thing saves immediately in defined place” aspect. you seem to need to *send* the draft where you need it to go. or am i being a rube and not using the functionality properly?

xpost

talk to me about my problem space.

i would feel i was being awkward but *simplenote + nvalt just did this*

is it situation where workflows with v little requirement for features aren’t remunerative or don’t have sufficient lock in to reward anyone to do it?

in which case capitalism sux. i don’t know whether anyone knew this.

are file managers inherently subversive? are dreams electric?

I've been getting on fine with Notion. I'm barely using any of its capabilities beyond what is basically an Evernote stand-in, but it's cross-platform, allows me to start new notes with a couple of clicks, stores notes in folders and the search is just about fine. It's a bit buggy in places but I'm glad I made the (ok, enforced) switch.

There needs to be a word for that feeling when you get a new notebook/notes app and you think 'ah, I AM a writer, I just needed the write tool!'. And a word for when you relapse and remember you're just a wayward, procrastinating fule.

*jesus, that's a hell of a typo.

new stationary

Actually Fizzles -- iA Writer does what you want I think. New note, automatically saves as text file in defined directory.

Every time I used it I think of it as "Irrationally Angry Writer" which I think is points in its favour as well

It syncs w iCloud as well

ok, thanks TH (he said with extreme wariness and an increasingly stubborn belief that *nothing* does what i want or ever will and maybe that’s how i *like* it now and do i even know what i want any more anyway and actually isn’t that life after all when you think about it hmm)

i will try it out.

i *have* managed to get my notes folder as a standard location, but getting it to be the default notes location when i create a new note (on my phone this is) seems opaque at best. i will persist.

Fizzles, have you considered this weird thing called a pad of paper? it's pretty awesome ... you can use a pencil, or a pen, and it totally is open source! It's been a gamechanger for me.

i do use pad and paper! nearly all of the time and in general it’s what i like most. the main issue is remembering to go back and write up notes so they can be retrieved and are searchable at a later date. that’s quite a valuable process if you keep it up (good way of revisiting old thoughts and ideas) but not if you don’t. which is me more normally.

actually it turns out that the new ia writer shortcuts should be able to do what i want. which is disappointing as i wanted to carry on wailing NOTHING DOES WHAT I WANT every time tracer made a helpful suggestion.

Ah that's disappointing :)

Which shortcuts look useful for what you're doing?

open new file with Text at Notes: / (or whatever folder path you get when you Copy > Folder Path from iaWriter

add it as a shortcut to the home screen and bingo. replicated my old simplenote workflow.

the new template shortcuts in iawriter are v helpful imo.

Tbh I have this thread bookmarked because at some point I will relent from my old school ways

if it works stick with it imo. at a basic level, any sort of complexity above “take note and note is there forever” (ie pen and paper) is some sort overhead. at an extreme level the requirements of some systems seem to be a case of the squeeze not being worth the juice. the organisational effort is largely wasted time.

i’m also wary of of something analogous to the old line about how a company ships its org chart: how you organise your information will act for better or worse as something that shapes the outputs.

for better: formalising reference points (both external - page numbers, other metadata - and internal - relationship to other notes, tags)

for worse: system dictating how you put in the content (reference blocks, folders, separate sections where you might not have otherwise structured the content like that)

the gap between initial note and end output (essay, considered position on a thing) is writing and thinking.

the idea that a Second Brain system can do some of the heavy lifting here is mistaken, at least i’ve come to that conclusion.

still, in the end you work with the system that works for you - Keith Thomas had his reference cards. it’s interesting, delightful and important as Relgion and the Decline of Magic is, you can v much feel the reference cards in the background; it’s part of what makes it delightful.

20+ years ago when I did my master’s thesis, the department chair made everyone use index cards to organize their notes and citations. At first I rebelled, but then I went along with it, but I ended up modifying her system by typing the notes/citations and then printing them out, and then cutting the paper and taping/stapling each one to an index card… but I definitely came to appreciate the physical act of sorting and organizing that the index card method prescribed.

anyone gone full zettelkasten?

I never ended up doing much of this second brain stuff.

I did continue to build my side-gig work management stuff in SmartSuite going as far as adding a useful to-do list that can easily be linked to different jobs and clients, the ability to adjust priorities and other useful things. So the to-do list I wanted, but tied into my job management stuff, so pretty good.

The other thing I've been doing is relying heavily on Apple Notes. I feel like after looking at these more robust programs and ended up seeing some vids where people showed that Notes has some surprising features that are useful, but it's one of those things where it's simple enough...and being in the apple ecosystem, it's always there, and always synced and shared with my wife. Going on a big trip tomorrow and sharing a big checklist for packing has been a game changer. I know that's like checklist/to-do 101, but it's done the job.

The one thing I did that I think will change my life is I made a "note" called "memory hole" and i'm just putting every little thing that I'd need to remember there. Like the kind of stuff that a month later you wished you could command-F in the real world. Got a cheap little travel light for my daughter and it came with spare batteries. I put the batteries in the bag with all my cables. I'm sure by the time I need them, I wouldn't remember that. So I wrote it down. And now when I need them, I'll just go to notes and do a search on "batteries" or "light" and it'll come up. So long as I remember to write these kinds of things down, and write them in the same place, I think it'll be great. We'll see.

what i do is write that stuff in an actual paper notebook and then lose the notebook.

My handwriting is now so bad I can no longer easily read my own writing. Any to do list needs to be digital these days.

i now have paper notes in too many places that i have forgotten where they all are ... apart from "the last place I look"

If anybody's still looking for a good note-taking app, the maniacs at Zettelkasten have this app, called The Archive (which I think ticks a lot of your boxes Fizzles)

https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/

i have it already! but yes it does a lot that i like (didn’t it get recommended by stet upthread as well?)

not sure if this is the best thread for this, but anyone else keeping an eye out for reviews of this thing?

one take, unedited, uncut

DC1_60fps_demo.mp4 https://t.co/DbTuBiImrJ pic.twitter.com/qMQnur5g6z

— daylight (@daylightco) June 6, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M6zT0mRvW0

never pulled the trigger on a remarkable because of concerns about the crappy kindle-level software etc.

I enjoyed owning and using a Remarkable but mine broke recently and I have no intention of replacing it. It seems to have taken a bash at some point (no visible damage and I haven’t dropped it - possibly while in a backpack whilst travelling) and the power button is jammed to the “on”position. This in spite of the device being kept in Remarkable’s own brand folio protective cover

I gather this is a common issue and that little or no support is offered by the company - the community advice is all DIY remedies around dismantling the device to fix the issue. I may as well attempt this at some point because what have I got to lose.

I can’t recommend the product - too flimsy, shit support. A pity because it basically does what it purports to otherwise

I’m doing my masters and currently using a mix of Scrivener (for notes and essay writing) Things (for task management) and Google Drive/PDF reader for book annotations.

The Things/Scrivener mix is getting unwieldy so I was thinking of shoving my task stuff into Notion or Airtable - it’s basically just two interlocking simple database tables, easy stuff. But their i0s tools, especially on a phone, absolutely suck. Has anyone found something similar that works well on mobile? I tried Obsidian but found the markdown/code reliance too annoying.