In some of the implementations of note/knowledge systems there is no defined way to write unstructured notes.

Cal Newport wrote something about it, WorkingMemory.txt. I would like to explain how I have implemented the working memory idea in my note system.

As I use vimwiki, it is possible to think of the note system as a wiki. However in wikis every node has a title and each title has a meaning. It is possible to have a workingMemory node and replicate the functionality described in the article, with the minimal cost of having a note with a special non literal meaning.

As a half inspired zettelkasten, writing mutable notes is not possible, and adding unstructured notes breaks the flow of the system. In zettelkasten it is necessary to find the parent of the note first, plus some task oriented transient notes will pollute the stack of notes.

Using vimwiki diary

My own take on it is to use the vimwiki diary and have a recurrent taskwarrior weekly task to collect what was missing during the week.

Diary notes are special and live in a different folder, they are mutable and linked to a concept as part of a wiki.

vimwiki default shortcut to access the diary \wi and \w\w to access today note.

The vimwiki option 'auto_diary_index':1 autoregenerates the file on visit to avoid stale versions

The organisation process

Whenever I organise the daily notes for the last week, I copy or expand the topics that I captured during the week.

If they belong to an already existing wiki entry and not zettel worth, I expand on the wiki entry, while keeping a diary note.

If they are good enough to add zettel notes, I do them and link to the associated concepts that I have in the wiki, plus keeping a link in the diary.

# 2022-11-22

Had a work meeting, discussed blabla technology that I need to check

would become either:

  • a zettel meeting note with a taskwarrior associated to the note
  • a zettel meeting note and a expanded zettel technology note
  • a zettel meeting note and a wiki technology node
  • a zettel meeting note and a zettel note linked to wiki technology node