the different kinds of information

2023-07-07

I have been thinking about how I capture what I'm learning and thinking about. I've been trying so many different methods and none of them have been quite right. I realized recently that there are actually different kinds of information, and they each have different requirements.

Here are the different kinds I came up with after reflection. In a series of upcoming posts, I'll describe the different tools I've used to process each kind.¹

todo lists

Mostly, I want to know what to do on a given day or within each project. They need to be accessible whenever I'm working, easy to add to and reprioritize, and easy to mark as done or cancelled. I count grocery lists, books to read, and movies to watch within these.

project notes

I found I need a place to write down what I am thinking as I work on each project, to keep me on task or get me unstuck. I just need to access the last entry of my notes here to get back on track. I often write down next steps here, but I've found this is not a replacement for a todo list, as tasks can easily get lost.

reflections

I often reflect upon my life. Writing down my reflections helps me process, but I don't reference it again very often. Sometimes, I stumble upon my old writing and I enjoy rereading it chronologically, so I suppose just a list of reflections with their dates would suffice for referencing back.

citation notes

The academic in me won't let me read an article without filing away a citation for it. Often, I also take notes on a paper and I'd like these to be filed with its citation, so I can quickly reference back what I thought about some paper. The citation list needs to be searchable, so I can quickly find a paper that I vaguely remember to send to people.

reference notes

As I am learning new things, I often jot down a series of notes on a topic. They can be brief and point me to a citation for further study. Sometimes, they're a bit longer and expand on some idea. For instance, when I read a nonfiction book I write down short summaries of interesting ideas and their page numbers. I do something similar for talks and sometimes meetings. I need to easily search through these (mostly by category) and ideally place them in an integrated system where the notes can build upon each other. These kinds of notes are nice to reference when researching a topic or writing a review of a field.

#categories #information