I constantly tweak my workflows this time of the year. I usually provide tools for others—that’s what I do for a living—but I also have to keep my knives sharp.

This year I’m tweaking two things.

Take better notes while watching a video.

• 1. I set up a YouTube channel piped into DEVONthink using RSS to download videos automatically.

  • Downloading YouTube videos with DEVONthink

• 2. I can use DEVONthink’s Annotations feature locally to insert timestamp-specific notes for the video.

• 3. I can export the annotation into Craft and create “permanent notes” in my Zettelkasten.

Moving my Zettelkasten over to Bike.

• I like to think about my Zettelkasten being a large outline. Keeping it inside Bike could be beneficial.

  • I’m trying to mimic the analog Zettelkasten (or Antinet).

    • I won’t use an analog one since I like the digital one’s benefits better, but I also want ideas from the analog one.

    • I’m a programmer and I use my Zettelkasten to understand coding concepts. I have some code snippets stored in SnippetsLab, so it’s easier to link to those from my Zettelkasten outline than keeping them on paper.

  • I can use the classical Luhmann IDs to add an ID each note.

  • I can nest notes under each other.

    • I can easily link notes together thanks to the Bike and Hook integration.

• Disadvantages

  • I don’t have backlinks, but I’m not sure I need that inside a Zettelkasten.