I often lose thoughts before I can write them down.
I’m curious how everyone here captures ideas quickly.
- Voice notes?
- Daily notes?
- Mobile app?
- Something else?
Do you review them later or are they mostly just a brain dump?
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First of all, I’ve stopped writing down every single “idea” (or interesting topic); over time, the sheer volume becomes unmanageable and —for me— useless.
If I decide to jot something down quickly, I use a QuickAdd macro: it opens a dialog box where I enter the “idea,” which then creates a list item (with a checkbox) in a background file.I review this compilation file once a month: I ruthlessly delete anything that turned out to be useless, aggregate and polish the wording, and link the item to notes already in my vault. You can also choose to add tags.
The beauty of the checkbox list is that I use Dataview to search for these items based on their content. Whenever I start a new study, I run a search using this tool. I use the same method to keep track of interesting resources I find online.
If I decide to take more time, I create a note with a typeNote property set to “NA” (for Note d’Acquisition—an idea capture note). I write down the idea, describe its context and scope, and flesh it out with my own resources—such as links to other notes and items from my checkbox system, which are thus organized into a dedicated document. I don’t hesitate to copy the same resource into multiple documents.
As I develop the “idea” note, the typeNote property value evolves—moving from “NA1” to “NA2” and “NA3”—or changes status entirely, for example to “NQ” (Note de Quintessence—distilling the core of an idea).
As an added bonus, here is a script for checkbox items:
In the body of the note, I declare an inline property that will serve as my search key.
maClef::
And further on, the dataview
TASK
WHERE icontains(text, this.maClef)
SORT completed asc
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When on my laptop in Daily note first usually (or contextual in a meeting note during a meeting). Then perhaps later in the day lifted out into a separate note or marked up with tags to make it findable.
I also always have paper / pen at hand. And when later in a week I’m copying things over into digital notes I curate/filter.
Thanks for sharing, I really appreciate it. Your workflow is much more structured than what I usually see. I’m curious: what’s still the biggest pain point for you today?
Thanks for sharing! I like how simple your workflow is. Do you ever lose thoughts when you’re away from your laptop, or does your current setup already solve that pretty well?
When I find something interesting, I save it to Google Keep, including dictations. Then every two or three days I review it, and if it’s still relevant, I save it to Obsidian.
I use my iPhone. There’s a shortcut on the lock screen that prompts for text, and then appends it to my daily note (creating the daily note if necessary).
Every day or two I go through my daily note(s) and make real notes (or more often just throw things away).
I use Bebop on my iPhone with a lock screen shortcut. I have it dump the note right into my vault. When I get the chance, I go through and expand, delete, or move the note’s contents elsewhere.
Although I am mostly at my laptop, a gap is when I don’t feel comfortable taking out pen and paper to jot something down, then I have to postpone, and capturing doesn’t always happen.
Interesting. Why Google Keep first instead of Obsidian directly?
Do you ever lose things before you get the chance to organize them?
That’s exactly the workflow I’m trying to simplify with The Nest. Capture first. Let AI organize and connect everything later.
Only ever one way: to the Things inbox, usually using their Quick Entry which I have on Ctrl-Space.
Then you must review these things. I do this every morning. For the love of god don’t have an AI review your thoughts. You need to understand:
- Is this an important action I need to take? (Pay a bill.)
- Is this a prompt for a project I’d like to start? (Write a book.)
- Is this a more nebulous idea that I’d like to keep? (I save these in notes called ‘P5 ideas’ that I review monthly.)
This obviously takes time and effort. I see this as a feature: over time you stop yourself capturing every thought. Because you realise that you can’t possibly do anything with most of them, so why bother?
Handwritten notes or a memo on my phone, whichever is fastest and closest to me at the moment.
The important thing is to lower the friction as much as possible. I don’t try to make the capture method perfect. I just need a quick place to catch the thought before it disappears, and then I can organize it later.
Everything is sitting right there in my vault directory that gets Obsidian Sync’d, so it’s there until I take action on it.
I took a note yesterday on a thought that popped in while reading a book and just threw like three sentences in there. Haven’t processed it yet, but it’s sitting right there in my vault inbox.
If I have a thought I want to remember, I write it down or speak it into a voice recording app.
For me, the thoughts that disappear are almost always the ones that show up away from the desk. Usually mid-walk. So my capture setup is built around that single scenario.
- A lock-screen shortcut straight into a quick voice or text memo. No folder decisions, no template. If capture isn’t one gesture, it doesn’t happen.
- Each memo lands in my vault as a plain
.mdfile withcreated_atin the frontmatter, so everything piles up in one inbox folder in Obsidian. - The part that actually made it stick is my routine pass where I set my time, read the vault myself and decide what graduates into real notes. Some memos die there as well, and that’s fine. Capture is cheap, the review is where the thinking happens. I’m with @johnnydecimal here, I don’t want AI doing that pass for me.
Full disclosure: I got frustrated enough with this that I built a small iOS app for it (Sanpou, voice memos on walks, exports plain markdown into the vault). The setup above works just as well with Shortcuts plus any recorder, but happy to share details if anyone’s curious.
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Always text. Never tried voice notes.
Most of the times I know exactly where to put something. I have notes created for several things already, so if it’s an Objective, Habit, Area, Project, Person, Company, App, Plugin, or Product, basically any “entity-like” thing, I just search that corresponding note and write it down. For the rest, it can go in my big Journal.md or a Daily Note.
A simple structure I slowly established across many notes is two headings: Tasks and Comments. Tasks are actions I want to take on, and Comments are timestamped thoughts I want to express or leave a reference for the future. For the rest, lately I have introduced a third heading: Resources.
Obsidian desktop or mobile app, no intermediaries. Dock on iOS with no special shortcut, just open the app and search, and Opt + 4 on macOS with Raycast. Keyboard shortcuts, Templates and vim give me enough speed.
I don’t have a “review later” process. I have enough inboxes in my life already, so I aim to keep the “review” items to the absolute minimum. I do have an “* Inbox” folder, for those one-offs.
Why do you think you lose your thoughts? What’s your biggest pain point?
I use a to-do app on my phone to record things because I’ve found that if I don’t jot them down immediately, I’ll quickly forget them. So I choose to use a mobile app for recording, paired with voice input—it’s very convenient since my phone is always by my side
My setup ended up splitting into three separate capture modes, matched to how formed the thought already is when it hits me.
Passing thoughts that need to get out of my head immediately: I talk into a Plaud, transcription gets dumped into the vault later. Zero friction, zero structure at the point of capture, same idea as what’s already been said here.
Quick text notes I want to slot into the vault right away: I use Stick for those, short enough that I already know where they belong without thinking about it.
Anything I actually want to sit down and write properly: that goes into iA Writer first, not Obsidian directly. Writing in a plain, distraction-free editor before it touches the vault keeps me from fiddling with tags and links while I’m still trying to get the thought out.
Everything eventually lands in Obsidian, and that’s where the actual organizing happens, tagging, wikilinks, backlinks. One rule I’ve stuck to for a while now: folders max two levels deep, no exceptions. Past that it stops being findable and starts being a filing project.