Note-Taking with Bear and Alfred
A Quick and Frictionless Way to Capture Ideas
It has already been more than a year that I got very interested in the ideas behind Building a Second Brain and that I started to search for ways to build a Knowledge Management System in my favorite note-taking application: Bear. A while back I shared THIS VIDEO which is a good introduction to all of this, and then I made THIS VIDEO talking about how I create shortcuts that allow quick and frictionless capture of ideas into Bear using Shortcuts and Alfred.
My system has evolved a lot since then. I have learned much more about how to make Alfred Workflows and Bear Shortcuts. I have updated my idea-capture methods and I’ve integrated all of this with Readwise and their new app, Reader. I have also changed the way in which I design notes so that they are easier to find or I can get to the most essential information faster. The challenge with everything has been trying to keep the system simple enough while at the same time being effective.
As part of my continuing efforts in simplifying everything, I’ve tried to condense my most used Shortcuts and Alfred workflows into just the very essential. I am not a coder and my knowledge in programming is extremely limited, so this has been a challenge that—to tell you the truth—I have quite enjoyed.
At this point this is what I use with Bear almost on a daily basis.
My Capture Shortcut and Alfred Workflow.
A Shortcut to bring Readwise highlights into Bear.
Today I want to share with you # 2, my Capture Shortcut and the Alfred Workflow which triggers it. Most of the things above are very particular to my own system so it’s not as simple as just sharing a file for you to try out. If you are interested in a specific shortcut from the list I just mentioned, however, I can give that to you AND explain how I have everything set up around here so that—hopefully—you can adapt it to your own needs.
The Capture Shortcut will most likely be the easiest for you to use, so let me explain how this works.
DOWNLOAD
Download THIS SHORTCUT and get THE ALFRED WORKFLOW.
SETUP
The idea is to have an inbox note in Bear where everything that you capture on the go will end up. You have to create a note in Bear and go into Note/Copy Note’s Identifier.
The setup of the shortcut will also ask for an inbox tag, where any new notes created will go. I personally like to also insert this tag in my inbox note so that all the thoughts or ideas captured on the go are in the same place for me to come back and process later.
The Alfred Workflow should work as-is unless you change the name of the Shortcut—which by default is “Bear Capture.” You can go into the variables of the workflow and change the name there in case you need to. You will also want to customize all the Hotkeys so that they make sense to you.
USE
On your Mac the Shortcut was created to be run by Alfred, so it won’t work properly if you trigger it by itself.
On your iPhone, the shortcut will work with its most basic function: capturing text to your inbox note. I like to trigger it with a widget from my ‘Today View’ and it runs on the background without even having to unlock my phone. I don’t have an iPad to test this, but it should be working in the same way.
To make the most out of the shortcut use it with Alfred.
My keyboard has latin characters and the position of everything will be different depending on where in the world you are, so don’t expect the hotkeys to work out of the box for you. I also have to tell you that the hotkeys that open a note in a popup will only work properly if there’s no open windows of Bear in your current workspace. I talk about it in my original video. In this new shortcut I am sharing here, popups is the only time we have this limitation.
I have left notes in there so you know what does what, but let me go briefly over the general functionality.
Use “c” as your keyword. I trigger Alfred, I type in “c whatever text,” press enter, and that’s it. That goes to my inbox note in the background.
Here are the modifiers that also work with the keyword. SHIFT will capture and open your inbox note as a popup. OPTION, will capture to a new note with your inbox tag. OPTION + SHIFT will capture the text to a new note with the inbox tag and will open it in a popup.
All of these hotkeys do exactly the same as 1, and 2, but with whatever text you have in your clipboard. I suggest you choose one character that symbolizes the clipboard for you and use the same for all those options, with those same modifiers. It will be easier on your memory. For me, “ç” is the clipboard.
This one captures whatever text you select and it tells you the application it came from. If you run it from text on Chrome, Safari, Mail App, or Spark, it will even give you a link to the original website or email. Here, in a similar way as previously mentioned, I assigned all shortcuts to a specific character that for me it symbolizes the “current selection.”
Have you ever been in the middle of doing something around your system and you wanted to start typing a new note right away? Then this one is for you. Bear does offer the possibility to create a new note from a global shortcut, but I am constantly working with a lot of notes in Bear and I don’t like to be taken away from the text I’m currently in. This shortcut will create a new note as a popup and with your inbox tag.
MORE
I originally wanted to make one video or write an article going over my entire system in Bear and all of my most used shortcuts, but I soon realized this was way too much for one piece of content alone. Is there anything specifically that you’d be interested in knowing more about?
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Thanks so much for sharing this! I can't wait to add this to my Alfred workflow!
I see. No idea how this happened but I don’t see a link between the text box with your note ID and the Bear action. Click where it says Identifier or title, then choose/select variable, and click TheID just below the text box that has your note ID. This should fix at least this first issue. A specific note title or tag are not required for the shortcut to work, by the way, they can be anything. The only thing needed is the ID.