I've realized that most of my tendencies to set up elaborate note-taking systems and frameworks have been an attempt to address my anxiety around learning and productivity. I'm constantly in the mode of "learning defensively" - questioning what I'm absorbing into my mental toolkit, how much I retain, and how much I'd be able to conjure if I needed to solve a problem in that domain. In this context, noting down whatever I come across in Obsidian canvases or webs of interlinked notes or making Anki flash cards gives me some comfort about what I'm doing, and of course satisfies the urge of organizing and categorizing things.
But when I relate these activities to learning itself, it becomes difficult to gauge how much of it is necessary. If I don't constantly serialize or test what I'm learning, how do I know I'm learning anything at all? And externalizing so much starts to feel like a burden and gives me less confidence in my own intrinsic ability to just go and do things.
I was going to post an "Ask HN" on this topic to see if other people related to this. If anyone has been in this mindset before and managed to break out of it, I'd be curious to know what helped!
I don't know your specifics, so I'm going to reply with what I've learned about learning:
I found reading a textbook, and typing notes into a dumb markdown file with the textbooks name is good enough. Typically: definitions, quotes, and personal thoughts while reading. Did this for stats/comp sci/etc. Obsidian + markdown worked for that, even without plugins. Being able to text search is useful, which is why I don't hand write.
Anything beyond that you have to be cautious about paralyzing yourself from trying XYZ PKM.
Theres a quote from stephen king that goes somewhere along the lines of "during first draft don't try referencing or fixing grammar because it breaks your train of thought". I think similarly, when learning something, choose the thing thats most out of the way (usually the simplest) that is least likely to break your train of thought.
In terms of tracking how much you're learning, I'd be very very slow and incremental in what tooling/methods you pick. For me, I just trust myself after reading/notetaking a textbook. Usually homeworks get very easy which is a good sign. Being able to explain what I learned to someone else is a good sign.
I would add that writing down your reactions to the books and not the book content itself is helpful. If something reminds you of something else then write about that. I mostly throw away all these things as the point is just to write them not to read them back
I'm starting to break out of this mentality by noticing that
1. I excelled at my exams without any strange note taking systems;
2. I remember many details down the road, even things I thought I had forgotten. For example, I needed some Linear Algebra, and I was surprised by how much I recalled after 10 years, so much in fact that in 3 days I was on par with when I passed my exam. It would have been worth it to make an Anki flashcard for every theorem?
3. In the exam I used such method I just needed much more time that when I used my minimalist note taking. So much in fact that I question the efficiency of such methods.
What is the goal?
That needs to start all conversations in this area. Not everyone had the same goals.
Second, what is your specific problems?
Again not everyone had the same problems. There are common problems with common solutions (often multiple conflicting solutions that work in isolation but perhaps not for your life), learning what works for others can thus be helpful. Beware, not all problems are big enough to be worth addressing for you.
The important part is find what works for you. Sometimes you don't need to measure what you learned - which seems to be your concern- if it is important and you learned it you will remember when needed. Of not you need to look it up again. It can be liberating to realize that you don't need to measure everything. Sometimes that isn't good enough though, so back to the first two questions.
Well if you write down a snippet of code, and later upi reliaze you need that code a gain but don't remember it but do remember that you must have written a note about it, then writing down the note was useful.
The issue I'm still working on is how do I find such notes when I don't exactly remeber what they were about.
Can confirm.
Say what you will about Tim Ferris, but maybe he was onto something when he said only learn the bare minimum to get something done and more than that is a waste (4 hour workweek).
> how do I know I'm learning anything at all?
I keep "proofs" of past performance. Like a drawing or a name of netflix series I barely understood or a text I wrote.
Once in months, I check that stuff and see myself understand the series better, see that I do better pictures etc etc.
When I feel anxiety, I check old stuff and compare it to the new stuff. It brings pleasure.