Also: note-taking, writing, knowledge.

Memex

Memex is the name of the hypothetical electromechanical device that Vannevar Bush described in 1945 as a device in which individuals would compress and store all of their books, records, and communications, “mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility”.

Electronic tools used to express, capture, and later retrieve the personal knowledge of an individual.

A PKB (personal knowledge base) consists primarily of knowledge, rather than information; it is not a collection of documents or other sources an individual has encountered, but rather an expression of the distilled knowledge the owner has extracted from those sources.

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, ‘memex’ will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.
It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.
– Vannevar Bush, 1945

Alternative, or similar names:

digital self
personal wiki
second self
second brain
digital garden

Apps

I’m not saving a list of Text editors here, what I’m interested in are: knowledge building applications.

ActivityWatch

App that automatically tracks how you spend time on your devices
Open source, privacy-first, cross-platform, a great alternative to services like RescueTime, ManicTime, and WakaTime
Measure your work-life balance; Find behavioral trends in how you use your devices;
Gain “self-knowledge through numbers” (Quantified Self); Keep a log of your digital life (lifelogging);

Athens

Knowledge graph for research and notetaking. Athens is open-source, private, extensible, and community-driven
Use Athens as a local desktop app that saves data to your filesystem or with a self-hosted server

Dendron

Personal knowledge management tool that grows as you do
Local-first, markdown based, hierarchical note-taking application built on top of VSCode and friends

Emacs Memacs

Memacs extracts metadata (subjects, timestamps, contact information, …) from many different existing data sources (file names, emails, tweets, bookmarks, …)
on your computer and generates files which are readable by Emacs with Org-mode.
Memacs as the central component of the system is a hub for all the connectors that add data from individual data sources

Emacs Orger

Convert data into searchable and interactive org-mode views

Emacs Zetteldeft

A Zettelkasten implementation for Emacs

Foam

A personal knowledge management and sharing system inspired by Roam Research, built on VS-Code
Use Foam for organising your research, keeping re-discoverable notes, writing long-form content and, optionally, publishing it to the web

HyperNotes

Home of your Knowledge
Create, share, and understand knowledge in a new way

Logseq

Privacy-first, open-source platform for knowledge sharing and management
Organize your todo list, write your journals, record your unique life
Hugely inspired by Roam Research, Org Mode, Tiddlywiki and Workflowy

Meins

A personal and smart journal
Experimentation toolkit for designing your life. It helps you collect relevant information, design, and then implement change.

Mem.ai

The fastest way to capture, connect, and share information
As simple as Apple Notes - powered by a collaborative graph database
A mem is a container of information (i.e. a note), from a nascent thought to a fully-fledged document

Neuron

Future-proof open-source app for managing your plain-text notes in Zettelkasten style as well as for publishing them on the web

From the author:
https://notes.srid.ca/neuron-v1

Obsidian

A second brain, for you, forever
Powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files
https://obsidian.md

Outline

Wiki and knowledge base for growing teams. Beautiful, feature rich, and markdown compatible

Remnote

Your Thinking and Learning Workspace
Organize your thinking. Master your craft. Grow your knowledge.

Roam research

A note-taking tool for networked thought
As easy to use as a document. As powerful as a graph database.
Roam helps you organize your research for the long haul

The Archive

Note Taking: Nimble, Calm, Plain.txt
Plain Text File Storage, Clean and Simple User Interface
Elegant Text Editor, Swiss Army Knife of Note Taking
https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive

The Brain

Create digital brains for analysis and action
Visualize networks of knowledge like you’ve never seen before
Map your mind. Find anything. Get more done.

Timeliner

All your digital life on a single timeline, stored locally
Personal data aggregation utility. It collects all your digital things from pretty much anywhere and stores them on your own computer, indexes them, and projects them onto a single, unified timeline
https://github.com/mholt/timeliner

Trilium

Build your personal knowledge base with Trilium Notes
Hierarchical note taking application with focus on building large personal knowledge bases
https://github.com/zadam/trilium

Void

Terminal-based personal organizer, mind-mapper, task tracker and time-series visualizer written in Rust
https://github.com/void-rs/void

Articles

On Zettelkasten purism and the misdirection of backlinks

Don’t be distracted by the allure of backlinks; a good knowledge management practice provides more value. Luhmann’s Zettelkasten isn’t law; your needs should instruct the directives you follow
https://kristofferbalintona.me/posts/on_zettelkasten_purism_and_the_misdirection_of_backlinks

How and why to keep a “Commonplace Book”

https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2013/08/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book

Commonplace Books: What are they?

https://geekdad.com/2020/03/commonplace-books-part-1-what-are-they

Zettelkasten’s 3 note-taking levels help you harvest your thoughts

Your guide to fleeting literature and permanent notes using Roam:
https://betterhumans.pub/zettelkastens-3-note-taking-levels-help-you-harvest-your-thoughts-58326840f969

Level 1: Fleeting Notes
Level 2: Literature Notes
Level 3: Permanent Notes