Ask HN: How do you organise/integrate all the information in your life?
Hello fellow HNers,
How do you organise your life/work/side projects/todo lists/etc in an integrated way?
We have:
* To do lists/Reminders
* Bookmark lists
* Kanban boards
* Wikis
* Financial tools
* Calenders/Reminders
* Files on disk
* General notes
* ...
So far, I've found a wiki to be almost the most flexible in keeping all manner of raw information kind of organised, but lacks useful features like reminders, and minimal tagging support, no easy way to keep track of finances, etc.
I understand 'best tool for the job', but there's just so...many...
271 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadEven finances and accounting: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-l...
http://orgmode.org/manual/MobileOrg.html
The main problems for me are:
The first problem can easily be solved by using a tmux session that is shared between smartphone and laptop. The drawbacks would be that I can't access said session without Internet and also that I lose emacs's gui features like the pdf-reader. x2go is fast enough but they don't have an android client. I have yet to try nomachine.I like to keep them separate.
A Wiki (http://dynalon.github.io/mdwiki/#!index.md) works great for my work related stuff, while org-mode (http://orgmode.org/) works for everything else.
I also have a reference folder for bookmarks, which I treat a bit like old tax returns - things that are rarely useful, but vital if I need them.
I used to work with a guy whose desktop was a complete mess and he would never try to organize the chaos. He had high screen res and it would take him a minute or two to find something on his desktop but he could do it. Then when it got full he would take the entire thing and paste it into a new top-level folder, called "old desktops". Of course this included his old old desktops folders, recursively. So the old desktops hierarchy became like archeological strata for everything he had ever done.
The short version is use piles to sort and purge the piles regularly. The "good stuff" will rise to the top and you discard the junk.
Bookmarks are just another pile...
If they're still interesting later, they get read. If not - and this is maybe 80% - they get deleted. Storage is easy, so it's pretty satisfying to keep things and just not worry about deleting them later instead of organizing.
Very difficult. I'm by nature a very nostalgic person. Hard to part with items that brought me so much joy.
However, I came to the realization: Those items, while they gave me joy in the past, are literally preventing new experiences, and new sources of joy.
Need to make room for the future, and the only way is to throw stuff away.
A while ago I posted a question on all the top reviews of the book on Amazon: After 6 months/1 year, is their house still tidy, or was it not really sustainable? Very few responses, but I think one person said it was sustainable, and no one said it wasn't.
My mess is usually not with clothes, but with tables full of stuff, cabinets full of stuff, garage full of stuff, etc.
Did you go through a phase of getting rid of stuff, and then in the subsequent year, managed not to add more stuff to fill in the space you through away?
(And how bad was your house/apartment before KonMari?)
Honest question.
Oh wow, thank you! I've had the same problem you mentioned, extremely nostalgic, with a side of "emotionally connected/attached to object", and this mindset and perspective is, I believe, exactly where I need to be, and remember, when weighing the keep/let go decisions.
I like OneNote a lot more than I like Outlook, but the integration is reasonably good. You can create tasks from OneNote that give you reminders in Outlook, which link back to the rich-text "source material."
I can be up-and-running on a new system in under an hour. Just install my IDE's, get the Adobe CC from the cloud and get started.
The other solution would be to develop an app which polls emacs/org-mode for alarms/reminders. AFAIK this doesn't exist but it would be pretty easy to make.
I use it to sync with a Radicale server.
http://orgmode.org/manual/MobileOrg.html
Honestly, you don't need any extra stuff, other than `evil' if you want vim bindings. (`Viper' works fine if you grok vi.)
http://spacemacs.org/ https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs
The problem is that most tutorials depict emacs as a bag of keyboard shortcuts. But in reality, there are some simple principles that are quite understandable.
And org-mode is so underappreciated. You can turn it into anything. I use it as a wiki and a kanban board. And it's amazing.
Do you know one that doesn't ?
I'd love to see a similar thing for emacs, outlining how it is supposed to be used and explored and fits together.
After a lot of though, I had a little epiphany. Vanilla org-mode is great as a kanban as long as you don't try to visualize it as a table. One should use an outline instead. org-mode is an extension of outline-mode, so this should not be surprising.
Then everything is simple. Create custom states (I have TODO, PROG, WAIT & DONE). Agenda commands show you summarized views of the kanban. You can customize stuff with a bit of elisp, but org-mode as it is works great.
Note the outline version of a kanban is still 2D, as a table, but strictly more powerful (as you can nest tasks, add text) which would be next to impossible in a table.
... "What is the best way to avoid getting "Emacs Pinky"?" http://stackoverflow.com/questions/52492/what-is-the-best-wa...
Boagworld has a great video on his setup and how it all works: https://boagworld.com/working-in-web/omnifocus-2/
Getting things done book: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produ...
OmniFocus: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus
Technically they could easily sync via iCloud and encrypt the stored data, but of course for financial reasons companies prefer to be able to access and sell all your data...
I think the reason a lot of companies don't use iCloud is because some of the various ways in which iCloud worked have not always been reliable or suited to the task at hand.
Documents, sheets and notes, are in nextcloud, as well as pictures and other things. Calendar is there as well. Its all in one server, with raid0 ssds, raid5 for massive storage, a few "service" VMs like for nextcloud, a few containers here and there, with easy access and overview of it all on the hypervisor. Android phone has notes which is nextcloud notes application for simpler reminders/buy-milk kind of things.
* Also keep Slack open when I am working. If someone needs something, they can ping me on Slack and I will be available within 5-30 minutes.
* Gmail stars for everything I can't address immediately. Everything else is dealt with immediately and inbox count is 0 for most of the day (both work and personal addresses).
* Iphone calendar (with alarms) for everything I am putting off for later or need to schedule/remember
* Iphone notes for everything I am putting off indefinitely (movies/books/games to consume, gifts to gift, songs to learn, general goals for the next few years, travel destinations, events)
* Occasionally I leave things out of place so that I remember what I'm doing next time I leave the house (tennis racket on the bike + tennis shoes and shorts/compression shorts in my bag)
That's pretty much it. I really don't like having to keep things in mind. And when I want to zone out on a run or a vacation, I can safely do so knowing whatever I need to accomplish is on one of those lists and will probably get an alarm from my calendar if its urgent. I used to love using Pocket for reading papers/articles when I don't have a reliable connection, but its completely broken now and doesn't save pages consistently or renders pages unreadable.
IMO maintaining a wiki is way too slow and (depending on your work place) only accessible across VPN, which is incredibly inconvenient. Paying someone to act as scrum master/maintain a kanban is generally a waste of money/time as well, unless you work at a huge company (10,000+ people across hundreds of teams). But I'm biased and have always had a strong preference for small teams.
Any particular reason you mention "Iphone" calendar and notes, is there something special about them? Or will any old calendar (with alarms) and notepad app work and does the brand name not matter?
It took me a long time to find the right mix of tools that are ideal for my specific workflow. These are the tools I mostly rely on now:
- Outlook.com (with custom domain) for my personal email. I find Outlook's 'Sweep' feature a lot more feature rich than Gmail's filters. I have rules that automatically move newsletters over 3 days old to archive and then delete unnecessary emails over 10 days old automatically.
- I've grown to like Wunderlist a lot for personal tasks. It has its limitations but it gets the job done well. I don't bother with many folders etc. I just throw everything in the inbox and add due dates to it. Inbox is sorted by due date. Works great for me. Also, it integrates well with Outlook.
- Evernote is where is store anything that's remotely relevant to me. Again, I don't bother with multiple notebooks. I have 2 main notebooks - Inbox and Cabinet. All notes start in Inbox. When they are no longer needed for my day to day work, they are moved to Cabinet. All notes are meticulously organized with tags. I am contemplating having a 3rd notebook called Library (offline notebook) with all my favorite online articles tagged by topic. This might work better than a Wiki to be honest. I also use their browser extensions a LOT.
- I use aText snippets inside Evernote to log call notes, meeting notes etc. using a standard format. I have quite a few other snippets that I use in other applications as well.
- All my favorite articles are in Pocket
- All my personal files are on OneDrive. Work files are on Google Drive (it's easier to collaborate on Google because everyone I know uses Gmail / Google Apps).
- Work tasks are on Trello
- Photos automatically organized on Google Photos
- My code editor (Visual Studio Code) settings are automatically backed up on GitHub Gist using https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Shan.cod...
I also use a few other tools occasionally but mostly rely on these for everything. Like most people, I wanted one tool to fit all my needs but I came to accept that it's just not possible considering the complex needs of each function. You might not think about it but, task management in itself is more than just a simple list of to-dos that requires a lot of programming to be done right. Stop trying to find a one-size fits all tool. Leverage multiple tools and integrate them together. For instance, Evernote talks to Gmail through a browser extension so you can always save an important email easily. You can also create more complex workflows using IFTTT. That would be the best way to organize yourself.
Having said that, the things I come back to are Trello (Kanban-style boards), Pinboard.in, a personal wiki, and Google calendar. I like everything web-based so that I can access things wherever I am and whatever device I choose to use.
Over and above that, I use a paper-based daily planner that I've iterated over time. I pull everything to do that day on to it, then bin it at the end of the day.
Version 3 is here: http://www.slideshare.net/dajbelshaw/dougs-daily-planner-v3 (CC licensed)
- I can use daily for all my personal notes (ie. a digital commonplace book)
- is designed with an awareness of what keeps me from using such systems or mechanisms for uncovering those reasons (if I thought I could trust an app's being designed with that in mind, I think it'd be easier for me to stick with one)
- An example would be providing views that help me focus on the task at hand because looking at a giant task list is overwhelming for me
- was capable of providing me insights into myself through my data (eg. topic analysis of pages I visit, chat texts, etc. so I can see over time what I'm learning and how well those things align with my goals)
I'm also totally interested in helping design something like this because I've been putting together a design system I call mindful design and want to practice it with others.
* Calendar as overarching to-do, covering errands, appointments, blocks of "do this work". Sometimes I follow it closely, other days it is largely a suggestion.
* Mindmapping to collect notes, outlines, brainstorm. Lately I've used Coggle [0] for its easy sharing. When I need to add details, the nodes may grow into Gdocs links.
* "Scratch" text file when I just need to jot work things down and I really don't care about the organization yet. If it becomes more lasting I tend to move towards the other tools.
* Trello[1] when I want to cut out more discrete tasks over a longer period and log their status.
* Riot.im[2] to talk to myself. This is something new I'm trying, which is that I can start a conversation without having someone in the room yet, by thinking "out loud". Then I can subsequently invite people in to continue it. A tiny nudge in context that distinguishes it from dumping a text document on someone.
[0] https://coggle.it
[1] https://trello.com
[2] https://riot.im
Very fast to make a quick list, but of course awesome filtering/calculation/lookups etc.
I have a to-do.xlsx for work, and one for home. Different sheets for to-read, to-call etc.
Kidding aside, I don't think it's such a bad choice. I've looked for open source calendar/todo solutions and they either suck (can't be shared with someone) or can't be self-hosted. So I ended up using a file sync system with a spreadsheet. Worked well for me and my girlfriend to have a shared calendar/todo list.
For email, I've really been enjoying Google Inbox, the ability to sleep items is nice, and the reminder function is quite a handy TODO list of sorts.
But mainly it's the vimwiki for me.
Great existential touch there with the "alas"! I'm now picturing you as the Hamlet of personal task management.
https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster-gtd
My stack is becoming simpler as I declutter my life. On last update, I quitted Evernote and my notes are now managed on a text editor. I still use other tools for:
- collaboration (Trello, Slack, Gmail)
- finances (Spreadsheet: informal balance sheet updated every quarter).
- RSS (Feedly)
- image references (Pinterest: images with searchable descriptions. Unfortunately their search engine is bad, worse than Evernote's)
-- Calendar for events e.g. Google Calendar
-- GoogleMail with its task function for emails
-- one file for yearly, quartely and weekly goals
-- a normal file structure, with a README in each respective project folder, all literature, documents contacts, work, etc
-- one hard copy lab book for conceptual work.
I've used txt files/folders, then excell/word, then markdown (easy to write & read), and wiki. Then I found freeplane, started to play with it and never got out, its incredible: use plain text or html (to format your notes), insert images, links to external files/folders, the visual mind-map representation gives a great overview of your notes and lets you organize in a foldable tree (branches, parents, childs) your notes (like in deeper layers of detail).
After the initial text/html nodes, branches and folds, I started to use "styles" to add icons and automatically format certain nodes with a background color (ex: TODO=yellow backgrnd, DONE=green backgrnd, PROBLEM=red backgrnd, ...)
Never really got into other freeplane features such as "notes" view or node-attributes. But it all went up to another level when I discovered that its possible to create http://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Scripting:_Other_lan... freeplane-scripts (in groovy or java or javascript, or any other JSR 223 language like Ruby). And using freeplane-script I started to make my own scripts, to automate repetitive tasks and improve its behaviour for my needs.
Why is freeplane better than the others methods I tried before? It organizes knowledge in a foldable tree, that gets bigger and bigger over time, and after a few years, its just easy to "find" in the notes. It also performs quite well (my maps are huge, huge, years old huge)
Have a look and decide for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=freeplane
Right now my Trello board is organised based on the work I need to do for a week. I haven't really experimented with changing this frequency though as it pretty much works for me now. And a lot of times, I need to sub divide my weekly tasks and for that I use checklists. When needed, I create separate reminders for these sub tasks using the Reminders app(primarily because it is super fast and syncs well across my devices).
When I need to look for something, I first use Spotlight to search for it as it can search across all of these apps. Works most of time, but I have to search individual apps for better results at times.