Think clearly

Use chat to quickly dump your thoughts

Send a thought

Choose where to save (can do later)

#Save things in the chatbot

Everything is saved as local .md files

#How to grow your knowledge

Connect ideas. Let them compound. Think through.

1. I used app.files.md to grow my knowledge about brain and software development
2. I added new notes to either brain or dev folders. One idea per note
3. I made connections between the relevant notes in the web app (type [)
4. Everything is connected, just as in our brain
5. I spent time travelling through the notes and thinking it through
6. At some point, brain and dev notes appeared very related
7. An interconnection between domains produced an insight
8. I wrote an article based on that insight: Cognitive Load in Software Development

All this activity helped me to:

• Think deeply (which is very important in the AI-age)
• Think systematically and see the bigger picture
• Write insightful texts

To achieve all that, you'll have to use your brain, not advanced templates or AI workflows.

• Start with no structure at all, 0 folders
• One idea per note
• Every note should be understood without context
• Apply new knowledge immediately, don't save it for future self
• Link related notes
• Revisit your notes and think through

My friends and I have been using this simple setup for five years, and it works well.

#Second Brain?

I'll quote I Deleted My Second Brain:

Obsidian is a brilliant piece of software. I love it, dearly. But like anything, without restraint, it can also be a trap. Markdown files in nested folders. Plugins that track your productivity. Graph views that suggest omniscience. There’s an illusion of mastery in watching your notes web into constellations. But constellations are projections. They tell stories. They do not guarantee understanding.

When I first started using PKM tools, I believed I was solving a problem of forgetting. Later, I believed I was solving a problem of integration.

Eventually, I realized I had created a new problem: deferral. The more my system grew, the more I deferred the work of thought to some future self who would sort, tag, distill, and extract the gold.

That self never arrived.

The Second Brain is thrilling.
Advanced guru templates, plugins and AI workflows...
One wants to scrape the wisdom of the whole internet.
There's some beauty in this neat system. Every new note brings dopamine.
Second Brain gets better and better.

However, the first brain never actually gets smarter.
And that's an issue - in the AI age, your first brain is as valuable as ever.

Before adding a new note, try to answer these questions:

• How this new knowledge can sharpen your judgment or expand your taxonomy?
• How can you see the world differently, given this new knowledge?

#Notes can prevent experience

• Reading and taking notes can easily fool us into believing that we understand a text
• We think we understand, but in reality we just know
• At some point our "knowing" is so good, that we start feeling that we actually do it (or at least tried)

The worst thing is that we don’t let new experiences emerge because we already have knowledge. It's a knowledge barrier. Life gives us opportunities to live through new experiences, but we refuse, because "we already know".

#Self-help through reading and taking notes?

Harm caused at the emotional level must be healed at the emotional level.

Not through intellectual work and taking notes.
Reading without action is entertainment. A form of procrastination.
No amount of self-help books can heal emotional wounds.
What can help is psychotherapy, rescripting and chair work. Meditation.
Healing happens by feeling.

#When to take notes

If your goal is to:

• Develop a deeper, more structured understanding of something
• Do research
• Write an article or a book

Then taking notes is perfectly fine.

#Files structure

You don't have to think about the structure, it is predefined.
Although, you're free to use whatever structure you want.

• Chat: Chat.md
• Notes: Note.md, <category>/*.md
• Checklists: Read.md, Watch.md, Shop.md, MyChecklist_.md
• Journal: journal/2024.08 August.md
• Tasks: Later.md
• Habits: habits/Ate consciously.md, habits/*.md
• Images: media/* (png, jpg, webp, gif)
• Archive: archive/*.md
• Config: config.json