I’ve been trying a lot of PKM tools (Obsidian, Notion, etc.), and they’re great once things are organized.
But most of what I actually need to capture day-to-day is much smaller and faster:
- quick thoughts
- links I don’t want to lose
- random snippets
- stuff I don’t have time to organize
And this is where everything starts to feel… slow.
Capturing should be instant, almost no friction.
But most tools immediately push you into structure: folders, tags, decisions…
So either I don’t capture at all, or I dump things and never find them again.
Lately I’ve been trying to separate the two:
- one layer just for capture (fast, no thinking)
- another for organizing later
Curious how others here handle this.
Do you separate capture from knowledge building? Or use one tool for everything?
Yeah that “too many clicks” thing is exactly what kills it for me. Like if I have to think even a little about where to put something or which mode I’m in, I just don’t capture it at all. The 2-context thing feels real… capture vs actually working with the stuff later. I’ve been trying something closer to a “single flow” where capture is basically instant and everything else happens after… still figuring it out, but it already feels way more natural.