Dotfiles VS org-roam

For describing my workflow very briefly (not as well as Sonke Ahrens in the aforementioned book, but I will try), I try to follow the main points of Zettelkasten. Whenever you learn something, take notes about it. Make the notes brief, but very descriptive. Give it a large title describing everything contained in it so you can find it easier later. If its too large, split it into multiple files, so the note is atomic (meaning it can no longer be separated into multiple files). If you don't have time to write a note correctly, make a fleeting note about it to remind you and write it later. Densely link your notes with one another. Thinking about the connections between notes is sometimes half the work of writing it. This way, I never lose information. If I need something later down the line, I can always search with org-roam-node-find, as I use very descriptive titles as I mentioned. If not, there is also grep, which if you are not aware is a text editing utility that allows for searching all your notes. There are many grep tools in Emacs (i.e. counsel-rg being the one I use personally). For more explanation, you can check my literate org-mode config.

There is definitely a way to do this in Citar which should be mentioned in the wiki if you read through it (and if there is not the author of the package is very helpful in general) but I do not know what that is. This way, when you select a bibtex entry it will automatically create a note with the title being the title of the article, automatically associate the entry with its pdf and ready org-noter for use to annotate it. Its a very streamlined and automated way to work with this system of packages that I highly recommend. For more info on this, you can also look at my literate config for notetaking which naturally has a lot as I take tons of notes. Link to it is here.

For more info on my workflow, you can check my config over on github. This part is specific to my org roam, references and general note taking workflow, so you won't have to look for the relevant parts. Its a literate config and I explain some things more than I do here. If this all interests you I suggest giving it a check. I also couldn't recommend Ahrens' book more. Its an incredible read for academics of every science as its really applicable everywhere imo.

Also if something is not clear here you can check out my full i3 config over on github.

I keep absolutely everything in a single folder. Saved documents, images, movies, financial records, game saves, it doesn't matter. My hierarchical naming scheme takes care of organization. On the odd occasion I actually need a folder, I just append ".d" to the filename.

I use . as a hierarchy delimiter, so file extensions are just part of the hierarchy, and I can have multiple files with the same name except for the extension. For example, "film.spongebob.png" is a photo of spongebob, "film.spongebob.org" is a note about spongebob, and "film.spongebob.s1.e7" is my favorite episode.

I use org-roam [1] for note-taking and task/time-management. I absolutely require a plain-text system so it either had to be markdown or org-mode. Emacs was the deciding factor, else I would have still been using Dendron [2]

If OneNote is your thing, I'd probably recommend Obsidian [3] over org-roam. Despite it being the greatest program ever created, Emacs is a lot to learn "just" for taking notes.

If you like VS Code, check out Dendron. It's the one that got me into more serious PKMS instead of just chucking notes in a folder all willy nilly.

- [1]: https://www.orgroam.com/

- [2]: https://www.dendron.so/

- [3]: https://obsidian.md/

I'm using org-roam to keep my notes, which generally works well for me. There's one thing I am missing and I'm wondering if I just overlooked it, or whether it simply doesn't exist.

Org-Roam is a Roam-inspired Emacs mode that builds on top of org mode. Every node (aka note) has a unique ID that's different from its name. Every link from node A to node B actually links to the ID, so you can change node B's name without affecting the link. When you're on node B, you can open the Roam buffer and it will show you all of the links that point to that node.

Org Mode. I can export my notes to LaTeX or HTML and keep things tidy in a zettelkasten with org-roam.

Of course, the real power-user move would be to use Emacs with Org-Roam, but you have to be prepared to dive deep into the rabbit-hole. If you don't, it won't be worth it. If you do, you'll be handsomely rewarded. I know because I have, and I can highly recommend it if you like tinkering with and customising your tools. IMO, Doom Emacs is the way to go nowadays.

I'd highly recommend Org-roam. It's what has enabled me to actually start consistently keeping notes (and being able to retrieve/access them later). It's very easy with Org-roam to quickly add new notes, or add information to old notes, and the links/backlinks make (re)discoverability very easy.