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?
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
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.