Ask YC: How do you organize and manage your daily contents?

37 pointsby quanvor 18 Jahren56 comments

Like many HN members I love generating ideas, and I write them down whenever one pops up, wherever I can. Most of the time I just save them as txt files. Sometimes, I save them to Google docs or email it to myself. In addition to my own content generation, I also save useful links to code reference and insightful articles by emailing to myself or using delicious.

As the result, my inbox is filled with my own notes and reminder of things to do, my google docs documents keep piling up (about 300 right now), my desktop is cluttered with text files since I want to keep my recent ideas visible so that I can see them (when there're alot of them I just drag and drop the non-interesting ones into a folder). Worse, these contents are scattered across different places: in my local drive, on google docs, my inbox, delicious account.

It is becoming increasingly impossible for me to both intuitively save my contents and make them easily accessible. I'm trying to come up with some kind of process to save and access my notes/ideas/references and just wonder how HN members deal with this problem?

34 comments

spydezvor 18 Jahren

I subscribe to the one text file way of thinking. Well, mostly one text file. Some giant parts (phone/address book, usernames/password hints) got sharded off into their own text file.

Reasons for a simple text file: Text works well with unix CLI tools (grep, etc). Text can be read and editted on every computer out there. I own my data - ain't stuck in someone else's server or hidden in a big binary blob. The format is flexible, so it works with everything I throw at it.

Everything else is in the one text file. Ideas, books I wanna read, reminders, todo lists... everything.

It's sort of a mess, but I can usually search straight to what I need. If I can't find it straight away, I sprinkle in keywords when I get there...

Before I was doing things this way, I using emails and IMs and post it notes and a notebook and... I could never find anything.

bpratervor 18 Jahren

I do similar. To search for things, I tag all my entries, so it looks like like this:

@todo @linux @work

- Don't forget to process the client's log files today!

The file has grown huge, but I can still find what I need quickly.

BONUS: You can use quicksilver to add text to files, so from idea to entry, it only takes a second or two. No app booting, web page surfing, etc.

redorbvor 18 Jahren

I use a paper notebook, turned completely backwards, I work from back to front - Put dates on every entry... Thus when it is full I can read it like a book, I also Post-it tab every important entry.. I prefer the 70pg .70 cent notebooks with a spiral bound, also picked up a $1 portfolio at wal-mart, my boss taught me this one; he has used it for 5-10 years with great success. He can look back to when we build this building (7 years ago) and tell you the exact paint on the walls and the carpet he used and dimensions or each room...

write the range of dates on the front of each notebook then stack them in order...

terpuavor 18 Jahren

http://evernote.com - exactly what you are looking for. I have 20 invites if anyone wants to give it a spin.

EDIT: Please email terencepua gmail

I hate clutter :)

fallentimesvor 18 Jahren

Terence, I'd love an invite. My email is danhaubert [symbol thing] g mail [dotter] com

Thanks!

terpuavor 18 Jahren

I'm out of invites :(

wittenvor 18 Jahren

I'll cordially invite you to an Evernote competitor, Luminotes: http://luminotes.com/

Developed by a HN member, too. :)

snewevor 18 Jahren

I have 20. Give me some emails.

yangyang42vor 18 Jahren

hi, i'd like one please: my gmail-> hsuyangchang

thanks in advance!

carterschonwaldvor 18 Jahren

does it work on ubuntu? if so i'm interested

andreyfvor 18 Jahren

[email protected] , please

metajackvor 18 Jahren

I'd like an invite too. metajack at gmail.com. Thanks!

Hates_vor 18 Jahren

Best note keeping tool I've come across yet.

oneplusone2vor 18 Jahren

I would love an invite! (thanks!)

[deleted]vor 18 Jahren

natchvor 18 Jahren

Each idea becomes a project, even if it is a potential project.

Projects are under a year (2008) directory under a 'work' directory (where work refers to something I'm working on, as in in-progress, not work as in job). But job stuff can go under work/{year}/projname too.

So then I have:

~/work/2006/proj1 ~/work/2006/proj2 ~/work/2006/projn ~/work/2007/proj1 ~/work/2007/projn ~/work/2008/proj1 ~/work/2008/projn

etc.

Then when something is really finished and polished, I move it to a ~/proj/projname directory. That happens only rarely. I've been reconsidering this and might start keeping everything in its original place under ~/work/{year}/projname

The other systems I've tried suffer from not being scalable as the years go by.

Periodically I back up each year (zipped and gpged) to Amazon S3 with a script.

Sometimes a project will span years, of course. When that happens I decide on a case-by-case basis whether to do a symbolic link back to one original project directory, or whether to start fresh at some point with a clean set of files for that project, leaving the cruft behind but still intact in a previous year.

Inside each project I can still use version control for the project.

Some projects are just repositories for ideas. Projects can be my own, or they can be me playing with third party tools I've downloaded. Even just a new open source package I'm installing might get its own project, with all files, if it's tricky and I want to make my own installation notes for future reference.

All project directories have a notes.txt file (or can have, at least). I have a 'tagthis' script that takes text tags as argument and adds the new tags to header lines in notes.txt in the current directory. Then later I can grep for these tags.

Works pretty well so far. It gives me the freedom to call anything, even an idea I don't have time to work on right now, a project and make a starting place for it. So-called projects in this scheme are very, very informal, so it's a very light weight system that doesn't get in my way, yet it keeps everything organized forever.

davidmathersvor 18 Jahren

If you use a Mac you might find one or more of these softwares helpful for storing certain types of things:

Things to do (Things): http://www.culturedcode.com/things/

Things to memorize (Mental Case): http://www.maccoremac.com/

Wiki style notes (VoodooPad): http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/

Tag style notes (Notae): http://www.codepoetry.net/products/notae

Journal/Blog style notes (Journler): http://journler.com/

Search style notes (Notational Velocity): http://notational.net/

Visual style notes (Curio): http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/

Notebook style notes (NoteBook): http://www.circusponies.com/

Analyze your notes (Tinderbox): http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/

Personally, I'm going to try Evernote soon. It has synchronized web access, unlike any of the above. http://evernote.com/

You can also use Jott to create auto-transcribed voice notes from your phone: http://jott.com/

fugue88vor 18 Jahren

I use Org Mode for emacs. Each project idea gets its own org file in an all-project-ideas directory. Each file is added to an Org Mode meta-file that specifies the location of the org files.

I go through my ideas directory about once a week to keep things fresh.

Org Mode has built-in outlining support, date tags that bring items onto your calendar in several ways, and a ton of other features.

I tried it out for GTD a few months ago and got very quickly hooked. Until then I had been planning on writing my own web-based system.

fugue88vor 18 Jahren

P.S. The entire thing's version controlled so I can view and edit from any of my systems. I also collect ideas on paper, and later enter them into this system.

LogicHoleFlawvor 18 Jahren

I use a small spiral-bound notebook. I've thought about moving to a software version but I find the physical act of writing to be crucial to the process.

For a software to work for me, it would need certain features. I want wiki-like cross-referencing but don't want html output. Just text. I want to be able to edit in vim. Some basic formatting would be nice, and I want links to web sites to open in my browser. I want to be able to scan changes by date, to search through content, and to be able to view multiple entries at a single time. To-do lists are nice but I don't need a scheduler; I just need a place to keep track of current concerns. I want to integrate with my email, browser history, and IM logs.

Now that I list out the sorts of features I'd like to see, it looks like what I want is not just a single program.. it's a different way of interacting with my computer.

blogimusvor 18 Jahren

I'm currently using google notebook. It's much faster than google docs. Stuff that I don't want to keep up there, I put on my encrypted usb flash drive or my palm tx.

From reading the other posts, it looks like I'm not the only one who is working on something that I want as a better solution.

arthurkvor 18 Jahren

I write them down in my Moleskine (which i take everywhere). At the end of the week I review the ideas and normally start prototyping the following week.

kmtvor 18 Jahren

emacs with planner + muse + gnus + remember + calendar + bbdb, etc.

You get the idea: I live in emacs.

indyvor 18 Jahren

For anyone living in emacs I highly recommend org-mode (part of the standard emacs distribution since v22)

apgwozvor 18 Jahren

I wish I was as disciplined in emacs as this. I use it for twittering (via twit.el), irc and editing everything else, but I haven't jumped into gnus, planner, and calendar yet. I really should just do it. It'd make my life so much better.

tpimentalvor 18 Jahren

I've been slowly coding something to do this. I'm a heavy note taker, but often find myself searching for notes in multiple places. I've been trying to build a task tracker/note organizer, but have yet to find the right combo. The tool has already been rebuilt twice with a third already on paper, so it may look like a mess... but its my simple attempt at solving this problem.

http://tasks.tompimental.com

quanvor 18 Jahren

Great, hope you'll find the right combo and all of us will be benefited as well. One thing I can suggest is an 'import my existing documents' feature.

dhsvor 18 Jahren

I use http://www.assembla.com/. I've got a workspace for each project and ongoing process (e.g. "Taxes"), each with a wiki to collect notes and links, the ability to write tickets, assign tickets to milestones, send messages to the process, &c. SVN, too, for projects that need that (I don't use version control on my tax files, but I could now :-). So far, this has been a splendid arrangement.

lbrandyvor 18 Jahren

Write your own. Let me use it :)

(that's my way of saying that I have no idea, but I voted you up so someone can help us)

bigtogavor 18 Jahren

For ideas I use OneNote (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/default.aspx). I'm a Windows user and it is part of the Office suite. OneNote is great for bringing order and search to disorganized ideas.

michael_dorfmanvor 18 Jahren

Hear, hear. OneNote is by far my favorite Microsoft application.

markbaovor 18 Jahren

Am I the only one bummed that there isn't a Mac version of OneNote?

keefevor 18 Jahren

I use a secured installation of tikiwiki off of my normal site for security reasons. I move computers too much to save everything on one machine, and it's more secure as I have backup jobs setup for replication.

Alex3917vor 18 Jahren

If my ideas are unrelated to projects I'm currently working on, then I save them as .txt documents in one of two folders: "ideas" or "writing." Writing is just a folder of things I want to blog about in the future, whereas ideas are more business idea type stuff. If the idea is related to a current project then it goes in my mindmap for that project. All of my mindmapping is done using FreeMind, and I have a mindmap for every major project: businesses, extended essays/books, classes, etc.

henningvor 18 Jahren

Backpack (backpackit.com).

snewevor 18 Jahren

Google Sites is a near-replacement for Backpack once you integrate a to-do list app from say Remember the Milk. The "Announcement" page type = Page in Backpack. If you need more formatting for a page, you use a "Web Page" style. Sites is just a little slower (less Ajax) and less pretty. As a 2-year paying Backpack customer, I think I can make a complete switch.

redorbvor 18 Jahren

How do you integrate with 'remember the milk' ?

snewevor 18 Jahren

Go to any page that you created, and select "Insert" --> "More..." Then search for 'Remember the Milk' Hit insert and if you are already logged in it will show your list of tasks. Pretty rad.

JesseAldridgevor 18 Jahren

Here's an entry in my to-do list:

"Make a database of questions I've asked and other info. And make it easy to find the answers again. Look at: YCombinator, StumbleUpon, Google, Tomboy, thinklinkr, CreateDebate, Delicious, Experts Exchange, DabbleBoard, Wikipedia"

Piece of cake, right? :)

figuredvor 18 Jahren

I use Google docs.

A separate doc for each idea and a master doc with each idea being a quick one line summary. It sounds like a lot of work about it allows you to quickly scan your ideas, looking for patterns or possible solutions to problems. And it really doesn't take that much maintenance

SAvor 18 Jahren

Google Docs to me are just too slow and a bit less featuristic.

neovivevor 18 Jahren

Simple Solution: Use one Google Spreadsheet with columns for date, rank, category, industry and any other useful meta information related to your ideas. You can then sort and filter by the various columns. Spreadsheets are an excellent and proven way to organize information.

dimitryvor 18 Jahren

Yup, same problem here. I'm writing my own as well. It's very simple (twitter-like) and the site will email me with recent notes, etc. (not sure how often, but I don't want to forget things, soo)

Making notes/tasks shareable is a feature too to get feedback on ideas.

greymanvor 18 Jahren

I use windows freeware application called Keynote (http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html). It is basically a tabbed notepad, where each tab is either a rich text file, or a tree with nodes.

davidwvor 18 Jahren

I use "Stuff To Do" ( http://stufftodo.dedasys.com ) for that as well. I put the random ideas at the bottom of the list, and weed out lame ones every once in a while.

kammevor 18 Jahren

I use google notebook (notebook.google.com). It has a nice firefox plugin that lets you manage your notes and you can create different categories (for exmple, I have webdevelopment, personal, stuff).

ComputerGuruvor 18 Jahren

PostIt notes. They're hard to manage but they give me so much creative freedom!!

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/postit-notes/

maxkleinvor 18 Jahren

I lost 2 years worth of ideas and notes when my PC crashed. Since then, I do it all using todoist. Pretty nice - just add a Project and add each idea as a todo item.

capablancavor 18 Jahren

I basicly use an emacs mode to organize them, keep them version controlled, tagged, only to never find the information i need when i need.

spydezvor 18 Jahren

Don't tease me man...

What emacs mode do you use?

[deleted]vor 18 Jahren

SAvor 18 Jahren

Nothing beats Microsoft Office OneNote. I use it for all my notepad things and it really makes organizing things a bit easier.

adammichaelcvor 18 Jahren

I have a notepad that I keep in my wallet. Every time I get an idea it goes in the notepad. It works great!

yajvor 18 Jahren

google notebook for quotes, ideas I see in the web.

rememberthemilk - for my action items, also includes my "read notebook" tasks

basecamp - for my project action items

By the way, I also have invites on evernote. send me an email yajmail at gmail

bporterfieldvor 18 Jahren

I seethat you have invites to evernote and yet it's not on your list of apps you use - why not?

tigerthinkvor 18 Jahren

xPad is free and awesome for Mac OS X.

http://getxpad.com/

aggiebenvor 18 Jahren

tiddlywiki

newt0311vor 18 Jahren

Good directory structure + version control + a list keeping program that I wrote. The list keeping program just keeps lists along with entries in said lists. Lists and entries can then be retrieved based on regular expression sequences, timestamps etc... The actual data is kept on a remote postgres server so I can access it from anywhere.