I have multiple journal systems
I capture and document information in various formats. Here’s a list of each journal type I create, along with its purpose and the tools I use.
- Thoughts / Statuses 11.1
- Purpose
- Explore ideas in a semi-public but low-pressure format.
- Easy to do thinking. Thoughtstorming. Thinking out loud.
- Tools
- Mastodon as a backend.
- Mona for storing and organizing thoughts in threads.
- I have to bookmark threads for easy finding and appending new ideas. Mostly kept append-only, to see the whole thought formation over time.
- Ideas
- Maybe I should start these threads as “Thinking about XYZ…”.
- Purpose
- Interstitial journal
- Private journal entries
- Purpose
- Document my daily life, personal reflections, or private thoughts that I want to keep track of and also remind myself about.
- Tools
- Day One / Journal.app for storing and reviewing them. Occasionally, I might draw insights from these entries that can turn into more public or structured notes.
- Purpose
- Note Development / Zettelkasten
- Purpose
- Write daily notes about articles I read.
- Build a permanent, networked knowledge base or “building blocks” of my thinking.
- A resource to consult for ideas, forming the “backbone” of my knowledge.
- Tools
- The Archive for browsing and searching notes.
- iA Writer for writing entries.
- Cursor for interacting with the Zettelkasten as a conversational partner.
- Presented as static website at zettelkasten.decoding.io.
- Purpose
- Blog Posts / Articles
- Purpose
- Public-facing content—share refined ideas with an external audience. May start as a collection of Zettelkasten notes or microblog threads, refined into an organized piece.
- Tools
- Blogging with Bike: Bike outlines for quick and raw posts.
- iA Writer for writing posts combined from notes found in my Zettelkasten.
- MarsEdit for general posting and editing.
- Posts are presented on my blog, POSSEd into other microblogging systems as automatic statuses.
- Purpose