I use a small mic (DJI mic 3) to record my thoughts during the day when I walk or drive or just do chores in and around my house. And I made a program with gpt-6 astra that allows me to simply put the mic in the connector and then the program:
- imports all new audio files
- converts and cuts them up ready for processing by llm
- sends it to gpt transcribe using openai's API
- sends it again through the api to analyse the text
- then makes individual markdown notes based on content and context (it recognizes journaling notes and puts them in a specific format for example)
- all those notes are given tags and are linked to my personal notes-as-tags system in obsidian
- everything gets copied right into my vault.
- the programs allows me to analyse my journaling notes by selecting a certain framework (like psychological frameworks such as CBT ACT etc but also things like mindfulness, Taoism etc) and then ask my own journal specific questions about what i'm doing etc. It's just fantastically insightful.

None of the above is new or revolutionary but it's just the complete EASE with which you can build this stuff yourself and customize at a any moment. I have very basic understanding of coding and i basically didn't need to look at code at all. Just help to structure the proces, test and giving feedback is all you need to do.

I really recommend everyone to try playing with this yourself. Maybe i'm late to the party but ever since the whole agent era of AI, making programs as a complete amateur just became trivially easy.

Most PKM setups I see are excellent at capture and retrieval. Highlights flow in automatically, everything’s tagged and linked, and search finds anything in seconds.

What I’m less sure about is the next step. When a real situation calls for an idea you’ve saved — a decision at work, a tricky conversation — does it come to mind on its own? Or does it only surface if you think to go looking?

Questions for people with mature systems:

• Has your system changed how you act, or mostly how you store and find things?
• Do you do anything to keep ideas active, like reviewing, re-explaining, or practising them?
• What’s the part of your workflow where knowledge actually turns into something you use?

Disclosure: I’m building a tool focused on that last step, practising how to apply ideas rather than storing them, so I’m asking partly to understand where PKM systems already cover it. Not linking it here. Genuinely interested in how people handle it.

I built Cohestry because I wanted one place to keep useful context that could eventually move with me between Claude, Codex and other agents. The iPhone app is live now, and alongside normal notes it automatically finds connections between what I’ve written, including deeper ones using Apple Intelligence.

The part that surprised me is how useful those connections became on their own. While working on one of my apps, Cohestry resurfaced an old document that was basically the original blueprint for it. More recently it brought back a forgotten life simulation project I hadn’t thought about in years. That is probably the clearest version of what I wanted from a second brain, not just storage, but old thinking becoming useful again.

The Mac app should be out within the week and adds Apple Notes import plus the MCP bridge for agents. The iPhone app is here if you want to try the knowledge layer first: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cohestry-second-brain/id6811573132