How I Code (with a little help from +20k markdown notes)

As a developer, I'm often shocked at the relative few numbers of tech workers that practice any sort of consistent note taking. When I find people that do, it is usually as one giant README or through keeping a paper journal.

I think a large part of the issue is that the field changes so fast and things become out dated so quickly. Taking notes seem like a Sisyphean task where trying to keep up to date is about all you can do.

Note taking can serve many purposes, for myself, notes serve as a cache (think redis, but for your brain). If I've spent more than 5 minutes debugging an issue, I never want to spend 5 minutes of my life re-solving the same issue.

The problem is the sheer number of issues that you might encounter on any given day and trying to come up with a system that is easy to write, quick to read, and will scale with the number of notes you put in it.

Over the last decade, I've developed what I call a hierarchy first approach to note taking workflow that has led me to accumulate +20k markdown notes, all of which I can reference in a few seconds. I refer to these notes every few minutes. I owe a lot of my relative "success" in my field, as well as in life, to the knowledge inside these notes.

I recently did a writeup of this workflow and wanted to share it in case it inspires others :)

https://www.kevinslin.com/notes/3dd58f62-fee5-4f93-b9f1-b0f0f59a9b64.html