Brief Summary
This video outlines a workflow for using a note-taking app effectively, emphasizing consistent engagement and adaptation over time. The core principles involve capturing information based on personal interest and relevance, reviewing notes to identify usefulness, linking ideas to build connections, and creating new content from existing notes. The system promotes continuous learning and momentum by leveraging past interactions and insights.
- Capture what resonates with you
- Review notes regularly to identify what's useful
- Link ideas to build connections and context
- Create new content by building on existing notes
Intro
The video introduces a foundational workflow for using a note-taking app consistently. It addresses the challenge of knowing what to write down by focusing on two key signals: whether you want to remember something and whether it interests you. The presenter suggests capturing as much as possible initially, with the understanding that you'll refine your focus over time through review.
Capture
When capturing information, prioritize sending everything to your daily note within Capacities. Capacities offers multiple ways to capture information, including WhatsApp and Telegram integrations, email, and Raycast integration for MacBooks. The daily note serves as a central hub for all captured content.
The Role of the Daily Note
The daily note should be personalized to your needs, with no fixed standard to maintain. The volume of captured information may vary from day to day, reflecting your current interests and priorities. The daily note functions as a central hub where everything flows in, and new notes emerge. Capacities' daily note is integrated with a calendar, facilitating the creation of new meetings and objects directly from the daily note interface.
Review
Reviewing captured information is crucial to ensure you're focusing on relevant and useful content. This involves a second filter, asking whether the information is currently useful or potentially useful in the future. The review process helps prioritize information based on your current needs and context. For items deemed important, create dedicated notes with titles, properties, and space for writing. For other items, use tags to resurface them later when relevant.
Use of Tags
Tags are used to group items within Capacities, allowing you to see a consolidated view of everything related to a specific topic. When reviewing, ask yourself where you want to see the captured information, and use tags to link it to relevant topics like habits or productivity. This ensures that the information resurfaces when you're thinking about those topics in more depth. The cornerstone habit is to capture and review regularly, ideally on a weekly basis, to avoid missing important or useful information.
Linking and Backlinks
Linking to notes in Capacities creates backlinks, showing where you linked from. Backlinks provide context and help you understand the connections between notes. Capacities also has a mentions feature that identifies places where you've written a word without creating a link, offering the opportunity to review and link those mentions. Backlinks offer insights and give notes another use. Reviewing backlinks can provide insights and context, helping you build a network of interconnected notes over time. This system works for any note, not just research, and can provide useful reminders and information. It's not necessary to review every backlink of every note; focus on what's relevant to you now.
Create
Creating something new with your notes is not essential but can be valuable. Tag pages group notes under shared keywords, inspiring new ideas and connections. Use collected notes as a starting point for answering questions or engaging with new contexts. This process is easier because it builds on work you've already done, such as capturing quotes, reading web links, and tagging them appropriately. This approach helps maintain momentum and encourages continuous learning by working within your existing notes and interactions.
Outro
The video concludes by reiterating the foundational workflow: capture what matters, review regularly, link ideas, and leverage backlinks to learn more about your notes. The core practice is engaging with your notes regularly, and the system will evolve as your needs change. The basic building blocks of capturing, reviewing, and processing remain constant, providing a supportive note-taking system.
