digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Stop relying on folders and build a flexible, tag-based "second brain" where notes connect through tags and linked hub pages instead of nested folder hierarchies. Anne-Laure Le Cunff pairs a folderless note app (Roam Research) with Google Keep for quick capture and Google Docs for drafting, and treats creativity as combining existing ideas rather than waiting for a sudden original insight.
Key Points
- Folders force you to decide the single highest category for each note and then drill down step by step; tags let one note appear in many places at once.
- Hub pages act as automatic collections: once a note is tagged (e.g., "EEG"), the hub page pulls in every linked note without manual upkeep.
- Friction can be useful: she only imports the book highlights she still finds interesting after typing them up, which filters what enters her system.
- Creativity is described as combinational: she spotted the same weak-argument ideas recurring across sources and combined two thinkers' ideas into one article outline.
- Her workflow moves from notes to outline in the hub page, then to Google Docs for writing, then copy-paste into WordPress for frictionless publishing.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Use a bookmark-bar web clipper (she built her own) that saves a link and adds a "to read" tag, creating a built-in read-later list.
- Tag each note with topic names that match a hub page (e.g., add "EEG" to every relevant note) so the hub pulls them in automatically.
- Batch-process reading by topic: review and tag several items on one subject in one session rather than switching subjects.
- When writing an article, drag the linked references from related notes directly into an outline on the hub page.
- Once the outline is ready, paste it into Google Docs and draft from there; add examples while writing, since it is hard to judge their value at the outline stage.
- Publish by copy-pasting the finished draft into WordPress, and share drafts publicly to get feedback and collaborate.
- Anne-Laure uses Google Keep for quick capture, Google Docs for writing, and Roam for note connections; she says Google lacks a strong dedicated note-taking tool, so she uses specialized tools for that job.
- She reads physical books, underlines passages, marks the page corner, and types notes later during a laptop session, which she calls tedious.
- The speaker notes an anecdote about a professor's story that college students don't know what folders are, and shares his own view that the folder paradigm will pass away.
Bottom Line
A folderless system built on tags, hub pages, and combining existing ideas lets you spend effort on creative thinking instead of filing and maintenance.
