Top all-time · #711
Andy Matuschak
Personal blog · notes.andymatuschak.orgwritingproductivity
Andy Matuschak writes Andyʼs working notes, a personal blog at notes.andymatuschak.org about writing and productivity. Since 2020, 91 different Hacker News readers have linked it 126 times, most often “Andy Matuschak's Notes”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Sometimes recommended · 13 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this notes site as a model of backlinked, evergreen note-taking, and for Matuschak's writing on note-taking, spaced repetition and thinking.
- Recommended for · 13 comments
- Called 'well explained', 'very interesting' and 'a good example'; one ranks him top in the field.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Andy Matuschak's Notes19 people · 22 mentions · first linked 2020-02-21
- Evergreen Notes9 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2020-11-04
- /6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-05-28
- /4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-10-21
- On 'life hackers' who write extensively about note-taking apps4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-08-27
- /z4SDCZQeRo4xFEQ8H4qrSqd68ucpgE6LU155C4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-04-11
- /z7kEFe6NfUSgtaDuUjST1oczKKzQQeQWk4Dbc2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-05-24
- /z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw1QXf7kcD82 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-02-24
- Spaced repetition memory system (2024)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-18
- Those writing extensively on note-writing rarely have a serious context of use2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-29
What Hacker News says?
I have the current version, and between my Kindle and iPad Pro and spending 10 hours per day in front of my laptop I don't use it as much. However, there is no better device on this planet for reading long-form PDF documents, research papers, or scans of textbooks. It wins. I wish the annotations were more useful (they're sort of kept a separate layer) but the reading experience is great. Andy Matuschak has some goo…
Comment linking /reMarkable
on “ReMarkable 2.0 – A digital notebook that feels like paper”Submitted Spaced repetition memory system (2024) as a story · 279 points
HN discussionI have found taking notes to be very helpful for a sort of spaced repetition. It helps me retain more from the books / articles I read. The main benefit that I'm trying to get is well explained in one of Andy Matuschak's notes. [0] [0]: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z6UDDkom8Aifg6mLdjT1sPtbMBwe...
Comment linking /z6UDDkom8Aifg6mLdjT1sPtbMBweCmpyTwmJT
on “Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files”Submitted Andy Matuschak's Notes as a story · 166 points
HN discussionInteresting stuff! I currently use Andy Matuschak's [1] system, using his note-link-janitor script [2] to generate backlinks and Typora to edit. The only thing Obsidian adds is the graph view for me, but it seems that Obsidian generates backlinks using file name, not title. I prefer linking by title. Perhaps this can be an option? The editor also seems to be lacking a little... for instance I can't seem to render ma…
Comment linking /About_these_notes
on “Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files”Submitted Athletes and musicians pursue virtuosity in fundamental skills as a story · 159 points
HN discussionA few amazing things the site is not doing justice yet - Everything transclusion: just like you can show images in Github-MD, obsidian allows you to view PDF, Audio, or even other notes inside a note. - Header-level linking: You can link a note using [[note_name##sub_heading]]. Therefor, you can embedded a section of a note inside another. - CSS modding is AMAZING. The community is getting creative with modding obsi…
Comment linking /About_these_notes
on “Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files”Submitted Those writing extensively on note-writing rarely have a serious context of use as a story · 139 points
HN discussionWhenever I go searching for how to take better notes I always end up on: https://notes.busterbenson.com/ https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes And https://www.kalzumeus.com/
Comment linking /Evergreen_notes
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies as a story · 125 points
HN discussionSee: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking” And: People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use Once loaded, scroll all the way to the right: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNot...
on “Stop Taking Regular Notes; Use a Zettelkasten Instead”Submitted Stacked/Accordian-style presentation of pages that are already visited as a story · 54 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of Andy Matuschak's notes website [0]. I dig this view for much better understanding. [0]: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: ChatGPT UI for rabbit holes”Submitted Evergreen Notes as a story · 33 points
HN discussionReminds me of Andy Matuschak's UI as well: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z9C7piFz8mthkGUUd1W2CR?stack...
Comment linking /z9C7piFz8mthkGUUd1W2CR?stackedNotes=zExJhXA1doKnxyQQ4ZjX4dV
on “Show HN: ChatGPT UI for rabbit holes”Submitted Notes on Vision Pro as a story · 22 points
HN discussionGreat idea. I also see inspiration from Andy Matuschak's notes [0], of which I'm a bit fan [0] https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zB74H9CuWrosEuqve7jZyCo?stac...
Comment linking /zB74H9CuWrosEuqve7jZyCo?stackedNotes=z5E5QawiXCMbtNtupvxeoEX&stackedNotes=zDcuS8A5uxGR8hQygsqP83A
on “Show HN: ChatGPT UI for rabbit holes”Submitted Spaced repetition can lower stakes of destructive inbox-maintenance operations as a story · 20 points
HN discussionI've been investing in taking notes to enable better understanding of the material. I tend to follow Andy Matuchak's philosophy on note taking ( https://notes.andymatuschak.org ). But, I've only really started taking notes, so grain of salt about this. Some thoughts and responses to what you've said: 1. I try to make sure anything I enter into my notes are intended to last, filtering/processing is a key step to that…
Comment linking /
on “Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files”Submitted Work with the Garage Door Up as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI really liked Andy Matuschak's article “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking” - https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z7kEFe6NfUSgtaDuUjST1oczKKzQ... Over the years, I have also moved from one app to another when it comes to note-taking. Frankly, I was using them more as a place to put things that I might want to refer to later than using them to think about the problems that I was tryin…
Comment linking /z7kEFe6NfUSgtaDuUjST1oczKKzQQeQWk4Dbc
on “Tired of note-taking apps”Submitted Evergreen Notes by Andy Matuschak as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've tried a lot of note taking apps over the last 8 years. Over the past few months I've become less fussed about the tools and more focused on the process: I now have a file for each week (I call it a journal or weekly notes), with a heading for each day of the week, and a sub-heading for each meeting/conversation/thing I'm thinking about. At the each week, as part of my weekly review (GTD), I review the weekly no…
Comment linking /z4SDCZQeRo4xFEQ8H4qrSqd68ucpgE6LU155C
on “Tired of note-taking apps”Submitted On 'life hackers' who write extensively about note-taking apps as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAre you referring to https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes ?
Comment linking /About_these_notes
on “Show HN: Collected Notes – A note-taking blogging app I made”Submitted Work with the Garage Door Up as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAwesome! FWIW I currently use a clone [1] of Andy's notes website [2], to which I've added KaTeX support. The biggest feature is the Roam-style bidirectional linking. But your system is sufficiently simpler that I think I'll give it a try, at least for some use cases. Roam-style bidirectional linking would be cool, but I wonder if it's better to keep it simple for everyone else rather than add very specific features…
Comment linking /About_these_notes
on “Show HN: Collected Notes – A note-taking blogging app I made”Submitted Collecting material feels more useful than it usually is as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAndy (the Orbit author) has his own very interesting Zettelkasten-like set of public notes. In this page, for example, he compares/contrasts his "Evergreen note" approach to a Zettles in a Zettlekasten: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmm... Additionally, his system does have spaced repetition built-in, too: "I’ve embedded a Spaced repetition memory system into my notes: The mnemonic medium…
Comment linking /z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmmF62XgaMXm
on “Orbit: an experimental platform for small tasks repeated over time”Submitted Executable Strategy for Writing as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
