How do you remember?

I've tried a bunch of those apps/sites too and honestly I've found that none of them have a perfect one-size-fits-all solution because there are different kinds of information that I need to remember.

• If it's something important that I need to remember but am unsure when, like a code or name or number or something, I'll probably just email it to myself. That way if/when I need if in the future I can just search for it in my email very easily.

• If it's something I'm sorta maybe interested in but not too fussed over if I remember to check it out or not, maybe I'll just leave a browser tab open for a few days/weeks until I decide that I actually want to read it or not (often times I'll just close it after a few days because I'm not that interested any more).

• If it's a webpage that I know I'd like to come back to, I'll just bookmark it into an appropriate bookmark folder.

• If it's a lot of text that I need to save, like a list of stuff to do or notes from a phone conversation, I'll just use the default notes app on my phone, or maybe a google doc/sheet if I'd like to share it with my wife.

• If I need to be reminded at a specific date or time, then I'll just use the reminders app on my phone, or a basic alarm if its within the next 24 hours or so.

Seems like a messy system, but it mostly works fine for me. Despite there being like 5-10 different apps and programs, I find that it works well because each program or app serves a specific role rather than trying to remind me of everything.

I keep a little notebook. Write the date at the top, the topic and a very brief note of what needs to be done and potential issues

I used to keep it in my head, and I was far happier for it because you don’t remember what you forgot about, so you feel like 100% success rate lol. But after I started working I just had to externalise it somewhere for proof if anything else, then kept it going because writing things down gave my brain time to compartmentalise the issue

For little projects I'm working on or longform notetaking/journaling, I have an Obsidian notebook that works across all my devices (Windows, Mac, iPhone).

For time-sensitive reminders, I've found Apple's Reminders app to work best for me. It has the most reliable notification system and cleanest interface I've seen. Combined with Apple's default Calendar app and widgets on iOS, I've been fairly pleased.

if it's IRL stuff like a grocery list, I'll use Keep

For anything I find in a browser I now use self-hosted Karakeep with self-hosted AI tagging

I rarely find myself going back into Karakeep, since the stuff that's really important I will remember enough so it pops up in my address bar, but for everything else it's nice to know it's in Karakeep somewhere

I note things down across a variety of mediums nowadays. It's certainly messy but the places I save things are places I often spend time at for other reasons so I'm never too far from what I've saved.

At work, I keep everything in a solo Notion instance. My company recently gave employees access to Notion so I've got things noted down there. When I need to share things with co-workers, I'll create a document in our wiki and share it with them that way.

For personal things, it's a mess haha. For emails I receive that I need to action on, I will pin and flag them within my email client. That way, every time I open my email client, they're at the top and highlighted to grab my attention. For clipping things like screenshotting confirmations or saving plans, I use a personal Discord server. I spend a lot of time on Discord chatting with friends so it's easy to just forward things to my personal space and also upload to it. For reminders, I use the Google Tasks app, though I've also been using Apple Reminders recently.

I've used Apple's built-in Reminders app on my iPhone. It syncs to my Mac and when I'm thinking about things I need to do I usually enter them on my Mac because I enjoy using the keyboard more.

I have list for things which repeat on a more or less weekly or daily basis (take out the trash), and a list for things which happen on much longer timescales like quarterly or yearly (pay estimated taxes, change air filters, inspect water heater, change car oil).

I also have a list for things I need to buy the next time I'm at any store. It's a list that has groceries, toiletries, hardware, anything that when I'm in any sort of brick and mortar store I look at briefly before I leave just to make sure I hadn't forgot something.

And then there's just a general list for everything else.

Every reminder can be assigned an alert so it will go off at a specific day or time, or just hang out without notifying you (like all the stuff on my shopping list).

It's gotten to the point where anytime I think of anything, I reflexively pull out my phone and add it to the list (you can also do via voice, but often I don't like saying my thoughts in public).

The main benefit for me is I never spend any time worrying about whether I'm forgetting something. If it was ever important to me, it's on a list. Maybe once every few days I go through all of the lists and remove anything that is no longer relevant, like a fleeting idea I thought was a great idea that I've already taken care of. In general before this my brain was constantly spinning thinking of all the things I may have forgotten to do - that's no longer the case for me and it's incredibly freeing.

I bought a physical notebook (dotted, so I can draw my own lines) and a pen that I keep on my desk, or in my purse when I go out. I number the pages, and reserve the last few for an index. Before the notebook I had a bad habit of making notes in random Google docs. In contrast the notebook makes it easy to have everything I want to remember in one place. It feels very hygienic if that makes sense. And it means I'm not uploading my random thoughts -- my grocery lists, blocking for parties, stray ideas about books and games, research references for writing -- into the cloud.

For tasks I use Apple's Reminders. It integrates with the Calendar app, so that's great.

For all sorts of note-taking, including things like grocery lists, I use Bear.

Links are just bookmarked.

I keep tabs open when I need to do something urgently otherwise I save them to a sqlite database. Every week I see if any cruft has stayed open and force myself to get things done or push them to the sqlite database.

Why sqlite over simple text files? The main reason is that I can add columns like page title and time_created to keep track of when pages are saved and marked as completed. But I've used simple text files for a long time too and it's easier to start with that.

Gmail snoozing emails to myself or adding calendar events is also helpful for one-off tasks--but for recurring tasks I run a program to open tabs from a special sqlite database that helps me keep track of all the sites that I want to visit without visiting them too frequently or forgetting one.

I think my number one magic trick is just to do things that are needed immediately when they are needed--even if it takes a lot longer than 5 minutes.

I like to use an Obsidian-style set of markdown files for anything I need to remember long-term. (I use an nvim plugin because I already use nvim frequently but same diff) Otherwise I use browser bookmarks for things I find interesting or want to check out but haven't had the time. For everything else I have a TUL notebook with the little rings and the custom hole puncher to go with it. That lets me take physical notes or draw diagrams/doodles.

I've gone down the rabbit hole of "perfect" knowledge system storage and have settled on those three methods as good enough for me. Markdown/Obsidian is great for just dumping things with keywords and being able to search and find them later, bookmarks for online stuff that's not so important but I want to remember, and then the physical notebook with pages I can re-arrange for anything that I don't want to type.