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Ask HN: How do you store the knowledge gained in a day?

65 points dennisy | 2 comments | 13 May 25 18:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.422s | source

Each day I (and I assume most knowledge workers, devs, creatives) read many articles, papers, code snippets, AI responses, discord messages etc.

At the end of the day some of this information is most likely lodged in your brain and the digital version can be discarded. However some of it should be retained manually in some system - or at least I feel it should.

What approaches do people use to consolidate and store this information to allow all tabs etc to be closed for the next work day?

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exolymph ◴[13 May 25 19:52 UTC] No.43976944[source]▶
I have one massive text file (well, actually an Apple Note) where I paste anything I need to reference throughout the day. Reverse chronological, newest stuff on top. If I need something later, it'll be in there. If the information is sufficiently important, it'll eventually move into another more focused document.
replies(1): >>43976994 #
1. dennisy ◴[13 May 25 19:55 UTC] No.43976994[source]▶
Is this just links or also ideas, connections etc?
replies(1): >>43977962 #
2. exolymph ◴[13 May 25 21:32 UTC] No.43977962[source]▶
All of the above. I throw everything in that one file to keep it simple and prevent myself from spending unnecessary time organizing information that I don't end up needing again in the future.

I suppose the exception is when I already have a project-specific doc set up, then links or thoughts related to that project will go in there. But even then, sometimes I use the default scratchpad first, and move the info later, the next time I'm doing dedicated work on that project.