>Worse, the architecture began to shape my attention. I started reading to extract. Listening to summarize. Thinking in formats I could file. Every experience became fodder. I stopped wondering and started processing.

This sort of experience is what I've seen pop up consistently in folks that feel relief in letting go of some sort of knowledge management system. The trick might lie in one's ability to avoid (or get past) this sort of feeling. I think I agree that it's better to trash the whole thing than to be stuck in this kind of mindset.

For me, the mindset took 1~2 years to take hold after I started using Anki. Probably 3~4 years after that until I was able to dispose of it. Now, it's fun again.

I still use nvAlt (formerly Notational Velocity) for note taking. It is synced to a Dropbox folder. I can use the native Dropbox app to search, view, and edit the files. What I really like is the speed of note taking and searching in the nvAlt app. All my notes have a title in a loose format such as "project_name keyword ... keyword". It takes a second to find the note I need. Therefore, nvAlt serves as a bookmark manager as well. Obsidian feels clunky and slow, and I couldn't get it to switch to the .txt file extension (which is possible to edit via Dropbox on an iPhone).

the thing with such a system is keeping it up to date

you have to spend SO MUCH time writing notes... and since you might put in everything you've thought to do, in there, you also have to go back and read it again, to find it?

seems like a very time consuming process

i personally write down details for a few topics, in my notes, and then i tend to forget the small details, and use my brain to remember the big scope(s). then i can return to my notes for tiny details later, if needed.

most of the time though, i tend to never return.

and so i ended up just not writing notes anymore. it ends up being too much to look through, or too much to be worth the time.

gotta find that sweet spot i guess, but thats not easy either.

i like this. complexity bad, delete it! Most pkm, tools for thought, second brain apps confuse me. I drank the coolade with roam research but it drove me kinda nuts I've spent almost 3 years making my own tool. I mostly use it as a paste-bin, todos, lists -- and for the only thing i would never delete, voice notes on funny sayings or interactions with my 3 y/o daughter. my project is over at https://grugnotes.com if anyone else fits the anti note app vibe i'm kinda leaning into.

I don't take long-term notes at all, only quick notes on paper of thing I need to do. I tried to collect all thoughts, notes etc. but I would never read them again. Most of it would be outdated anyways. So I understand that these kind of notes might feel like ballast and might be a reason to not be able to close with things.

Everything that is worth keeping is on my website as properliy written posts which I enjoy to re-read from time to time. You could also look at it this way: anything that doesn't make it onto the website - i.e. is published - isn't worth saving either.

I remember reading the compendium of human-interface writings Apple put together in the 1990s. There was an exploration of ways to show age in software. They were changing the color and adding other aging effects to old files in the Finder.

I think part of that thought has stuck with me. I like storing things in directories by year. It is a structural reminder that a lot of the value of what I'm doing is tied to this moment in time. I can search back through "over the years" to find things, and it addresses this question of guilt.

,.............the ancient greeks, correctly identified nostalgia as a disease.That said ,deap personal memories do serve a central place is familial and tribal/cultural knowledge, but the ......."insignificant bits (and bobs)" are poison this is something that I have experienced on a number of occasions when knowledge keepers have......inserted, very short statements that serve to turn a great deal of other myth and trivia into a cohearant whole containing actionable instructions. a list can never,ever, serve this function

There’s something freeing about admitting that you won’t capture everything. I still write stuff down, but I stopped trying to build the “perfect” system. Life’s messy. Notes can be, too.

I am jealous, I barely can manage half of my brain, and everyone else is building their 2nd brain.

Future will whether 2nd brian is something useful or just a marketing pitch.

50 years how many great things have been created because we are using these this system, or in 2nd-brian's term: distill !

Einstein didn't have a second brian, Feynman wrote his notes on any piece of paper he can find at the time.

Time will tell, till then, it is not proven.