Resource
Recipe: Organize 10+ Years of Notes With an AI Agent
For founders drowning in scattered notes across Apple Notes, Google Keep, voice memos, screenshots. One afternoon. No coding.
Recipe: Organize 10+ Years of Notes With an AI Agent
For: Founders drowning in scattered notes across Apple Notes, Google Keep, voice memos, screenshots.
Tools: Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor — anything with file access.
Time: One afternoon. No coding.
What you'll end up with
- Every note tagged
- 10–15 thematic maps (the "great idea two years ago" is findable again)
- Cross-links between related notes
- A graph you can open in Obsidian, Logseq, or just browse as files
Step 1 — Get everything into one folder
Export each source as .md or .txt into ~/notes/:
- Apple Notes → Exporter app (free) → markdown
- Google Keep → Google Takeout → HTML, then drop into the folder
- Voice memos → transcribe with Whisper or your phone's built-in
- Screenshots → drop them in a
_screenshots/subfolder; the agent will OCR them
Don't clean anything. Messy input is fine.
Step 2 — Paste this into your agent
You are organizing my personal knowledge base.
The folder `~/notes/` contains notes I've written over many years across
Apple Notes, Google Keep, voice memos, and screenshots. Some are one line.
Some are essays. Many are duplicates or fragments.
Do this, in order:
1. READ every file. Build a working picture of recurring themes, people,
projects, and ideas. Don't summarize back to me yet.
2. PROPOSE 10–15 thematic clusters (Maps of Content) BEFORE tagging anything.
List them with a one-line description and 3 example notes each.
Wait for my feedback.
3. After I confirm the clusters, add YAML frontmatter to every note:
- tags: 3–7 lowercase kebab-case tags
- themes: 1–3 from the confirmed cluster list
- created: best guess from content or file metadata
4. Create one markdown file per cluster in `~/notes/_maps/`.
Inside each, link to its notes using [[note-title]] with a one-line hook.
5. Add CROSS-LINKS: where note A clearly references the same idea/person/
project as note B, add [[B]] inline in A. Bidirectional.
6. Write `_INDEX.md` at the root: every map, one-paragraph summary each.
Rules:
- Never delete or rewrite my content. Only add frontmatter and links.
- If a note is ambiguous, flag it in `_REVIEW.md` instead of guessing.
- OCR any image files in `_screenshots/` into sibling `.md` files first.
Step 3 — Push back on the clusters
This is the only step that needs you. The agent will propose themes. Look at the list and say things like:
- "Merge 'business' and 'startup ideas' — same thing."
- "Split 'writing' into 'book' and 'essays'."
- "Rename 'health' to 'longevity' — that's how I actually think about it."
Then let it run the rest.
Step 4 — Open it
Point Obsidian (free) at ~/notes/. The [[links]] and tags light up the graph view. You're done.
Why this works
The bottleneck was never the tool. It was the belief that organizing notes is a coding problem.
It isn't. It's a describing problem.
You describe what you want. The agent does it.
Tips
- Privacy: Run Claude Code or Codex CLI locally — your notes never leave your machine.
- Iterate in plain English. "Split the fundraising map from the hiring map" — the agent will refactor.
- Don't ask for a 'system.' Ask for tags + maps + links. That is the system.
- Re-run quarterly. Drop new notes in, run the same prompt with "only process files newer than [date]."
Part 2 — Living In Your Vault
Setup was the one-time thing. These are the prompts you actually run week after week. Save each one as a reusable command:
- Claude Code: drop into
~/.claude/commands/notes-weekly.md→ becomes/notes-weekly - Codex CLI: save as
~/.codex/prompts/notes-weekly.md - Anything else: keep a
prompts/folder, paste as needed
1. Weekly intake — /notes-weekly
When: Friday afternoon. Process the week's chaos before it piles up.
Look at every note in ~/notes/ modified in the last 7 days.
For each:
- Add frontmatter if missing (tags, themes)
- Add cross-links to existing notes
- If it's a fragment (< 50 words), suggest merging into a related note
Then write ~/notes/_weekly/[YYYY-MM-DD].md with:
- One-line summary per new note
- 3 themes that recurred this week
- 3 things I said I'd do but haven't (search for "todo", "should", "need to")
- 1 idea worth revisiting from older notes that connects to this week
2. Resurface forgotten gold — /notes-resurface
When: Monday morning. Pull something old worth a second look.
Find 5 notes in ~/notes/ I haven't touched in 2+ years that:
- Contain a concrete idea, not just a fragment
- Connect to themes I'm still active on (check recent notes for overlap)
- Aren't already duplicated by newer notes
For each, give me:
- The full original note
- Why it's worth revisiting now
- One question I should ask myself about it
3. Ask your second brain — /notes-ask [topic]
When: You're about to Google something you've already thought about.
I want to find what I've already written about: [TOPIC]
Search ~/notes/ by tag, theme, and content. Then synthesize:
- What's my current thinking?
- Where have I contradicted myself?
- What questions do I keep returning to but never answer?
Cite every claim with [[note-title]]. Don't paraphrase me into someone I'm not —
quote my exact words where it matters.
4. Notes → post — /notes-to-post [tag-or-map]
When: You want to ship a LinkedIn post but staring at a blank page.
Read all notes tagged [TAG] or in the map _maps/[MAP].md.
Pick the single most counterintuitive idea across them.
Draft a LinkedIn post in my voice (check _maps/writing.md and recent
posts for tone):
- Hook in line 1
- One concrete story from a real note (cite which one)
- One sentence that lands the insight
- No corporate voice, no "thoughts?" CTA
Show me 3 different angles before you draft.
5. Meeting prep — /notes-prep [person] [topic]
When: Coffee in 30 min. You know you have notes on them somewhere.
I'm meeting [PERSON] about [TOPIC].
Search ~/notes/ for:
- Every mention of them by name
- Notes about [TOPIC] from the last 12 months
- Anything I said I'd follow up on with them
Output:
- 5-bullet brief
- 3 questions worth asking
- 1 thing I might be wrong about, worth pressure-testing with them
6. Decision log — /notes-decide
When: You just made a real call. Capture the why before you forget.
Create a new note at ~/notes/decisions/[YYYY-MM-DD]-[short-name].md.
Ask me four questions, one at a time, and wait for each answer:
1. What did you decide?
2. What alternatives did you reject, and why?
3. What would make you reverse this?
4. When will you check whether this was right?
Format as a Decision Record. Tag it `decision` and link to related notes
you find. Don't move on until I've answered each one.
7. Quarterly review — /notes-quarter
When: End of quarter. What was I actually thinking about — not what I claim?
Analyze every note in ~/notes/ from the last 90 days. Tell me:
- Top 5 themes by frequency (what I actually wrote about, not what I claim to care about)
- 3 ideas that appeared and died — worth reviving?
- 3 questions I asked multiple times but never answered
- 1 belief from 90 days ago that newer notes contradict
- 1 person or project getting quietly more attention than I noticed
Honorable mentions (one-liners)
/notes-cleanup— find duplicates, orphan notes, untagged notes. Output to_CLEANUP.mdfor approval before any merge./notes-voice— transcribe every new.m4ain_inbox/, draft a note, tag it, link it, delete the audio./notes-screenshot— OCR every image in_screenshots/, create a sibling.md, file it under the right map./notes-debate— pick any note, argue the opposite position using only evidence from my other notes. Surfaces blind spots fast.
The real unlock
More prompts isn't the win. The same prompt run weekly compounds.
Your vault gets sharper every Friday. The forgotten ideas surface every Monday. By month three, the second brain is doing real work — not because the prompts got fancier, but because you kept showing up.