Ask HN: How do you organize your expertise?

22 points by waynesonfire 7 days ago

I was just thinking about this today and wanted to see what the community thought.

How do you, as a life-long professional, organize or catalog your accumulated domain expertise to effectively leverage it throughout your career?

bravetraveler 7 days ago

I am my experience/expertise, not my notes, so I take a very natural (read: naive/undeveloped) approach

If I/my calendar/ticket queue didn't remember it, it wasn't worth remembering.

Obviously, this isn't perfect, all kinds of trivium is forgotten. I'm not concerned; the important parts are internalized. I'm not going to forget the concept of protocols or whatever

My bag of tricks is different from others. I might need to borrow/loan: as it should be

I do want to make a point to write more momentary snapshots. A blog is the immediate thought. The things I find important change, of course, so this would be a neat record/trend

  • bravetraveler 6 days ago

    There is something I forgot to mention, but can't edit in now: running weekly notes.

    I'm not completely shooting from the hip.

    On login I get an editor with two files/tabs:

        1: this week
    2: last week
    This is the 'net' capturing anything not worthy of a calendar entry or ticket.

    It's a relatively short BASH script with the week/year handled by 'date'. On mobile or I'd share it; will post with interest

    • bravetraveler 6 days ago

      I remembered y'all... 9 hours later, finally at a machine with a copy :)

          #!/bin/bash
    SCRIPT_NAME=$(basename "$0")
    if pgrep -f "$SHELL.*$SCRIPT_NAME" | grep -v $$ > /dev/null; then
        echo "The notes are already being edited elsewhere."
        exit 1
    fi
    NOTE_DIR="${NOTE_DIR:-${HOME}/notes}"
    CURRENT_NOTE=$(date +%Y-week%V)
    LAST_WEEK_NAME=$(date -d '7 days ago' +%Y-week%V)
    NOTE_PATHS=("$NOTE_DIR/$CURRENT_NOTE" "$NOTE_DIR/$LAST_WEEK_NAME")
    EDITOR="${EDITOR:-vim}"
    if [[ $EDITOR == *vim* ]]; then
        # Run the vim-like editor with tabs
        $EDITOR -c ':tab all' "${NOTE_PATHS[@]}"
    else
        # Run the editor without vim tab arg; assume array is fine
        $EDITOR "${NOTE_PATHS[@]}"
    fi
      Triple dipping/posting thanks to that ~2 hour limit! Portability/efficiency wasn't really a concern in this - open to some golf
geekodour 7 days ago

I have terrible memory so writing things down is my only way to stay floating.

1. cheats: https://cheats.geekodour.org/ (it's a fish script that writes things into a org file which gets exported into html, i use fzf to lookup while in the cli)

2. a toolchest page: https://geekodour.org/docs/tools/primary_toolchest/ (haven't updated in many months now)

3. wiki: https://mogoz.geekodour.org/posts/

wiki(3) gets updated daily, cheats(1) get updated whenever it's a command or tactical stuff, toolchest(3) gets updated very rarely like once a month but helpful to organize the various things i work on etc.

most effective has been cheats and wiki in day to day use, i use ripgrep to search through my wiki, no fancy search.

wannabebarista 7 days ago

I use Obsidian to take notes with extensive cross-referencing. I mostly keep track of papers/books I read.

I used Trello for years but it eventually because too slow and clunky.

malux85 7 days ago

A hierarchy of folders Inside are pdfs, markdown files, images, schematics, mind maps

I frequently review them, shift things around

I have a set of spaced repetition folders which topics I am currently memorising go up and down depending on how easily and quickly I recall them when I test myself

I let the categories form naturally I don’t try and “big design up front”

The folder is regularly encrypted and synced to an always on android phone I have as a wearable computer (it has other functions too - personal llm output, on the mesh net to my personal cluster etc, connected to Bluetooth bone conduction headphones so I can hear while getting audio messages)

Works well, accessible on phone, laptop, any machines, it all resides on my NAS

  • animeshz916 3 days ago

    Very interesting, I've been thinking about remote access pc and android as portable storage, but never got time to actually create it. Can you please give a bit more elaboration of your setup, any references if possible too?

kalaka 7 days ago

Keep writing. Write without intention. Over the years or days or months or weeks you will notice the pattern in your writing. It's a reminder that outside is disorganized, but on your brain it's pretty organised.

telesilla 7 days ago

Every meeting I have starts with a new Notion entry with the date and title of the meeting. Then as the meeting goes on, I'll just take notes. It's been invaluable, having years of people knowledge to fall back on when I need a contact in a certain area, or remember where I learned something, keep business records etc.

breck 7 days ago

I used to keep notes on programming languages in a private journal. Then I open sourced it and thanks to a lot of contributors it is now pldb.io

we also invented scrollsets along the way, a great way to organize your knowledge

p1esk 7 days ago

I publish papers.