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How and Why to Regularly Resurface Notes in Twos

How and Why to Regularly Resurface Notes in Twos

by Swagman · 45 things on NewTwos

In this Twos list you will find a few thoughts about why you should regularly resurface important notes and things-to-remember – and in what ways you can easily do this in Twos.
Why Resurfacing Notes is Critical
When you do what Twos expect you to do, i.e. writing every*thing* down that comes across your way and has some relevance to you, you'll soon run into the squirrel problem: You have diligently collected a lot of yummy nuts and buried them safely – and later forget about 25 - 75 % (that's for squirrels) of them. The timespan in which this happens is incredibly short, at times you might looking at yesterday's notes and be like "oh, yeah, right, I wrote this down, did already forget".
Important *things* might refer to quotes that are worth to be re-thought again at a later time, to facts you should (or want to) remember permanently, some insights you might want to keep in mind for longer. This point is critical – because if half or even more of your diligent scribbles never see the daylight again, where's the point even to write them down?
Luckily, Twos gives you already a number of functions to resurface things again – you just need to make a habit of using them.
(1) Put Every*thing* into Its Place
Twos allows you to make a sheer endless number of lists and sublists to sort your *things*. Daily notes are for scribbles and notes of the day – but they need some sorting afterwards: quotes to quotes, facts in their corresponding topic list, insights in a "my thoughts" list, however you want to structure your notes. The "Move" and "Copy" functions in Twos makes it as easy as possible to move *things* where they belong. Seeing a number of connected *things* together makes it easier to keep the individual things in your mind (that's proven – you can remember connected things much better than shattered across, unconnected individual things).
The functions is there, the structure is up to you to define. Whatever you figure out is good, as long as you keep ending up with connected *things* living in the same list. The PARA-Split (Projects-Areas-Resources-Archive) is a good method but not the only one. So it is whatever you figure out – but just use structures.
(2) The Review-Function for Lists
When you want to resurface lists in a regular interval, Twos has you already covered: In the "More Options" Menu at the very bottom for a list you can choose a "review" setting for each list individually. You have the choice between rather short intervals like "tomorrow" or "next week" up to pretty long intervals like "in 5 years" or "in 10 years". After the specified interval is done, the list will be shown in the "Review" section in your side menu.
The "Review" function can help you to make sure to take a regular look at certain lists – or even many of them. So if you're good with re-reading your collection of quotes once in a week or month this already inbuilt function is already all you need (means, as long as you don't forget to give your lists a review date).
However, this function is only for whole lists – not for single *things*. As said, if you're okay with re-reading whole lists or even intend to do this anyway, it's okay. If you want to keep in mind single *things*, you'll have to take a different approach though.
(3) Remembering Remarkable Days
The "Time Travel" function has a different goal: It helps you to remember what was up a year or several years from now. It's somehow helpful to be able to sorta look at some "past you" to realize how far you went or to remember this time – what were your priorities, thoughts and actions back then -. and realize, how far you went from there or what you have developed or achieved in the meantime.
However, it's not a way to remember individual, important *things* (that's just some side-effect) but it helps you to remember your past "you" and the changes you have made since then.
(3) Integrating NeuraCache with Twos (the easiest way)
NeuraCache (https://neuracache.com) is an app that is entirely focused on resurfacing any kind of *things* in regular intervals to help you keep them in mind – with the least fuss and friction possible. That's the reason why I have switched to using NeuraCache in connection with my Twos a while ago. NeuraCache is available for both, iOS and Android.
I have used other apps besides but they caused a lot more friction when managing my *things* – importing and exporting files to specific places, correcting formatting and so on.
That's all gone with NeuraCache now, my *things* can stay in the place where they are (i. e. in Twos) and all the resurfacing at specific intervals is handled by NeuraCache.
It lets you choose whether you want to have them resurfaced either in your own intervals or in a scientifically proven approach of invidually calculated intervals that guarantees the maximum retention of your contents. (You might know about "spaced repetition" or "SRS" and the well-known app "Anki" which uses the same principles, based on Ebbinghaus' famous "forgetting curve" for content).
How to do it
in Twos all you have to do is to put a "#spaced" tag in front of your content
NeuraCache can keep track of a whole local folder (Google Drive Folders and Dropbox folders announced for coming soon) full of Markdown files – whatever content is in a file and tagged "#spaced" will be extracted and turned into a "remember item" in NeuraCache, even if it's buried somewhere in the middle of other, untagged content.
If you start to use NeuraCache, you just choose the options to use the folder-based approach and specify or create a local folder for your items on your device.
The steps to start resurfacing everything are then easy:
Tag your *things* you want to resurface regularly or remember with the "#spaced"-tag.
Export or share lists that carry such tagged items as a whole as MD file. (List menu - Share List - Share as Image, Text, PDF or MD file) and click "MD".
Take the downloaded .md file and push it into the folder you have specified for NeuraCache.
You're already done.
You then only have to visit your NeuraCache app daily and look at the items it resurfaces for you. In case you have chosen the SRS approach you're also asked to mark if you have remembered or not in order to calculate the next appearance date. This will guarantee that the chosen *things* will stay in your memory permanently for the long run.
Adding single items from already saved lists
If you have exported the MD copy of a list already to your NeuraCache folder, there are two possible ways to add new items:
Simply use Overwriting: The MD file from Twos comes with your list's title as filename. If you export it a second time (and if it's gone from your "Download" folder into your NeuraCache Folder) it will carry the same filename. So if you try to push this file into your NeuraCache folder, you will be automatically be prompted if you want to replace the old file. Saying yes to that will replace your old file by the new one with all the new *things* you wrote. They will be turned into "Remember Items" by NeuraCache automatically.
Export single *things* into a new file: You can mark any number of *things* on a list and export them separately (Share function after you mark *things*). In this case you will also have to choose "Share as Image, TXT, MD or PDF" and click MD. Push the downloaded file to your NeuraCache folder – Neuracache will take care for the rest.
Keeping your NeuraCache folder in sync over different devices
NeuraCache can't keep track of Google Drive or Dropbox folders (yet). So let's say you want to export your lists from the WebApp on your Laptop (because it's faster to do so) but want to use NeuraCache on your phone for review, you'll run into a problem because you can only choose a local folder on your machine, unless you have direct access to your phone's files from your PC.
There are certain apps like FolderSync that let you keep the content of specified folders in sync. If you use a Dropbox sync for instance, you have the following pattern: Laptop ----syncs to----Dropbox-File----syncs to-----Phone's local file. So you have to run Folder Sync or any similar app as well on your laptop as on your phone. That's somewhat tedious to set up (one time only though) but right now the only way.
@Parker: It's much easier if you could use the "Share" function from the mobile app and a local folder on phone but unfortunately the mobile app currently does not allow exporting MD files. So you would have to export text and just change the ending of the exported file from .txt to .md manually every time. Then you can push it to your local NeuraCache folder on your phone. Maybe it's possible to avoid this step by allowing to export MD from the mobile app, too?
To backup this local folder (to make sure that your "Remember Items" can't get lost) you'd have to manually backup your local folder on phone to Google Drive or Dropbox every now and then. In case you lose (or change) your phone you just can download your GDrive or Dropbox folder and use it as NeuraCache folder again.
Using NeuraCache for Flashcards - Right from Twos
NeuraCache allows you not only to resurface specific *things*, but also to create a fully-fledged, full-functional Flashcard Learning System right out of Twos.
It works in exactly the same way the resurface function does – only that you have to use a different tag ("#flashcard" or the "⚡" emoji) and that you have to specify what should be on the front of your card (the question) and what should be on the back of the card (the answer). This can be done in different ways. Front as well as Back side can contain Images or Latex in case you need them.
You can either use quick "one-liners" writing your cards like this: question : answer ⚡ (you can even change the delimiter to one you prefer) or you can create some more advanced cards in this pattern: what is the question? #flashcard this is the answer: - point 1 - point 2 etc. --- these form of cards need some "end-tag" (---) in them. If you write your whole card in a note-type thing you won't have problems using them. To sort your cards into different decks like in traditional SRS apps, you can do so too with your NeuraCache cards, also directly in Twos. In this case you can just add nested deck-tags behind your #flashcard tag like #yourdeck/subdeck/subsubdeck. No fuss and no friction. For more information on the different card types, the algorithm specifics and other details please just refer to the NeuraCache website (https://neuracache.com)
For students, avid flashcard-learners, incremental readers or other people interested in keeping facts in their brain forever: I'm just at creating a specific information framework that allows people to turn any textual information into neatly ordered flashcards in no time, while at the same time enhancing your retention and usage of the knowledge and your full understanding of the topic by applying a specific neural-network approach. In the near future I hope to have AI do this fully – you put in any text on one end, out come 100 % optimized flashcards for learning on the other side. If you are interested in this area or want to contribute, just drop me a note at Twos Discord (@Swagman) or drop me a line at swagmentosweden@gmail.com .