How Jim Nielsen takes & publishes notes

I always enjoy reading about other people's processes.

99% of the time, this is how my note-taking process goes:

  • I’m catching up on my RSS feed (on my phone in the Reeder app)
  • I read something that strikes me as interesting, novel, or insightful.
  • I copy/paste it as an blockquote into a new, plain-text note in iA writer.
  • I copy/paste the link of the article into iA writer.
  • I finish reading the article and copy/paste anything else in the article that strikes me.
  • I add my own comments in the note as they pop into my head.
  • I move on to the next article in my RSS feed.
  • Repeat.

And:

I like to let my notes sit for a couple days (or even weeks). I find that if I come back to a note and still find it interesting/insightful that means it’s worth keeping, so I put in the work of cleaning it up and publishing it.

Time is underestimated as a filter for content.