Ask 43F: Handling notes in scattered places
Shiran Pasternak writes to ask:
I'm overwhelmed by various note-taking tools you've recommended in the past (so it's your fault). I use, fairly arbitrarily, either TextMate, OmniOutliner Professional (purchased for kGTD, of course), and Notational Velocity…
My main problem is how to retrieve the notes, given that they exist in these scattered applications. Should I then migrate all my notes and use just one of these (or another I may have missed)? Or, should I use a combination of the tools? If so, can you offer heuristics for when to use each note-taking application, and also, if possible, some ideas for how and when to retrieve notes?
This is a really good question — especially given how many people are suffering from the first-world problem of having way too many cool Mac apps to choose from for this kind of work. The short answer is to slim down the number of tools you're frequently using, but to then be sure you also do something smart and repeatable with everything you've captured. The longer explanation…
Most of us eventually get pretty good at capturing the informational detritus in our lives — we have innumerable ways to park ideas, track bugs, create to-dos, and so on. In addition to the apps Shiran mentions, there's also the limitless possibilities of index cards, white boards, web applications, et cetera, on and on. The primary hang-up, in my experience, comes from using so many of these "collection buckets" that it becomes time-consuming and confusing to find, process, and do something with all that stuff in a frictionless way. All the capture in the world is useless unless there's an equally intuitive way to then do something with it.
So, first of all, try to limit the number of tools you entrust to data capture. I'm not saying you should just try to forget about something if you don't have your favorite capture device handy, but at the same time, try not to scatter your stuff among silos that a) don't talk to each other, b) you don't frequently check, process, and empty to zero. Candidly, this is what I like about my combination of text files, kGTD, and The Hipster PDA — I never have to think twice about where something goes.
- If I'm at the computer and need to capture basic ideas and reference stuff, it gets Quicksilvered into a text file
- If I'm at the computer and need to track a task, I add it to Kinkless
- Anything else anywhere else goes into the HPDA (for processing back at home base)
Your mileage (and devices) may vary, but I encourage you to aggressively thin the herd of whizzy gadgets and apps you use down to the one or two that work best for you. And most definitely don't tear ass to every new bauble that pops up on del.icio.us that promises to revolutionize your brain and your life.
Which brings us to the all-important second point: you must empty and process all your collection buckets on a regular basis. Or you will go insane. I promise. Only you can decide what "regular" needs to be, but, chances are, if you're not sure where something is right now (i.e. which bucket you left it in), it's because you aren't processing and reviewing often enough. A text file, in my case, is often the final destination for a piece of information, so that's not a problem, but leaving tasks, ideas, and notes in untended baskets can be almost as stress-inducing as not capturing them at all. Process the crap out of everything once, empty the basket, then review the processed results as often as necessary. Having fewer of these buckets, as above, makes this emptying a less trying experience.
And, finally, remember that reference materials in particular (like notes, future plans, and other non-actionable items) are only as useful as your ability to locate them when they really matter. Like I've said before, when thinking about where something goes, try to envision the time when you'll need to find it in the future. Where will you be when you need it? What tools and access will you have? What name will you search for? Are there other materials that need to always live with this item? For the retrieval, then — depending on how you answered all those questions — the answer might be Spotlight, Google Desktop, incremental searching — or even just flipping to an A-Z cabinet of file folders. It just depends. But you'll be much better suited to figuring this out once you've chosen your favorite capture, processing, and parking methods and stuck with them. Otherwise there's not really one answer. And that's probably the problem.
Capturing, by itself, will always give you a short and satisfying burst of stress reduction, but it doesn't absolve you of the need to make sure those captured items then get quickly placed into the spots where the really need to live. By minimizing your collection points, processing and reviewing regularly, and using smart planning for storing it in the right place, you can build a leak-free system that runs like a Swiss watch.
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September 12th, 2006 at 12:36
You know, I was thinking about this last night and concluded that perhaps we need to create a standardized GTD language- much like html can describe the elements on a web page; or much like EDI helped data exchange back in the 90s. I guess XML could fill this gap, but then the apps we use need a way to recognize them, eh?
September 12th, 2006 at 12:46
The problem with most electronic gadgets is that they are too complicated to rival the old pen and paper.
September 12th, 2006 at 15:08
Whatever happened to GTDTiddlyWiki?
I use it for just about everything. It's small, very useful and incredibly powerful. It runs on any platform that can run Firefox.
What more could you want?
September 12th, 2006 at 15:10
[Empiresfall]
Mylife Organized, easy to set up repeating tasks then.
[Innovation Zen]
Untrue, how long did it take you to learn to write legibly?
September 12th, 2006 at 15:36
I am new to the Project Management game - and still trying to get a handle on efficient data manipulation, storage, and retrieval. One of the problems that I have is the different types of information that I store - emails, documents, different types of files, etc. This ultimately means that for a given project, I have several different places to go/look. When I first joined my company, I obsessively had to take all notes electronically, and then realized that this just wasn't working for me in all circumstances. Then I switched primarily back to the ol' pen and paper for sketching out ideas or to do lists and notes. But this ultimately leads to a lot of data transfer when needing to collaborate with others or store information longer term. So I am still trying to find some middle ground! I think that the best advice is to "empty buckets" regularly. The peace of mind that is gained is invaluable, not to mention the effect that it has on my efficiency. Now if I could just make time for the emptying…
September 12th, 2006 at 16:45
I generally use DevonThink to organize stuff like this. It's easy enough to chuck my notes into a new DevonThink text element and give it a few tags. If I'm in the mood, I'll put it in some sort of hierarchical organization to make the notes easier to find. DevonThink's amazing search does the rest, and I can usually remember enough of what I want to get back what I'm looking for. You could probably accomplish the same trick with Quicksilver writing to text files and Spotlight.
September 12th, 2006 at 16:50
I fianlly decided to put all my notes into Evernote.com great tool for all my notes and research and to do lsits. One databse to rule them all. So tired of having notes and data all voer the place especially when there is more and more information to work with.
Give evernote a go.
September 12th, 2006 at 17:33
This issue of scattering tidbits of info in too many places was plaguing me as I tried out all those various nifty tools. I started with text files stored on my computer at home, but then there was the issue of accessibility from other computers (e.g. work) and storing complex stuff like a mix of images and text. I tried posting all the text files in a webdav directory on my paid online storage, but it's hard to search them there. I finally settled on a hosted wiki I'm using Stikipad)–it's intrinsically cross-platform, accessible from anywhere you have net access, backupable (PBwiki lets you download the whole site as a zipfile, for example; or you can use a sitesucker to automatically download it periodically, which is what I do) so you can access it locally on your computer if you DON'T have net access for some reason, and it can handle a wide variety of data formats (text, images, many can handle media, or store any kind of arbitrary files). And it's very easy to dump information there.
September 13th, 2006 at 5:49
Am I the only person who uses my email client for all notes, reading archives, and to-do lists? Are the added features in a note editor really worth the overheaed of splitting email from note taking and archiving?
With an IMAP account, everything stays synchronized across computers, and is available without a connection. Messages are searchable via Spotlight on the Mac.
My inbox is my to-do list. I have IMAP folders for "Tomorrow," "NextWeek," and "NextMonth," which get dumped into the inbox every morning, every Monday, and the first of every month, respectively. Every email that involves a reply or action stays in the inbox until I either take care of it and send it to a project folder or defer it to one of the future folders.
Notes are saved as draft messages, and articles I want to save are stored in an "Archive" folder.
September 13th, 2006 at 6:10
I took a leaf from an old book by PC coluknist Jim Seymour that said there are generally two kinds of notes you need to take: structured (by day, by subject, by person) and random (logbook stuff).
On my PC at work, I use an OpenOffice Write file I call my infoindex and I use that for structured reference info. Every topic has a heading and I view them all in outline format in a sidebar (similar to Word's Document Map feature). It's a growing collection of topics like Charge Codes, Linux tips, Crossover command line stuff I always forget, KDE tips, information on our servers, etc. It's my one-stop reference file and grows or shrinks over time as needed. Very easy to put new stuff into, update, and retrieve/search. I can also print it out if I'm paranoid.
For random info, I was using a quirky Windows program called Electric Notebook, but I've settled lately on using my paper diary and a Mead memo book that has pages related to my work projects (meeting notes, noodling, etc.). It takes a few minutes to leaf through the book, but that's OK — I find I don't often need to retrieve that much stuff.
I use a variety of Delicious and Scrapbook to store work-related online stuff; I just "know" where certain kinds of information are stored, based on my needs and how I sue these tools. It's personal and not easy to describe.
I prefer collecting right into my infoindex file and then, as I rummage through it later for something specific, cleaning it up as I go. Same for bookmarks, scrapbook, etc.
Merlin's idea for regularly checking your buckets is a good one; it's similar to Martin Ternouth's system for checking his project folders every week and throwing out old papers. And I second the idea that you have only one or two final resting places where your stuff is kept. I don't mind letting text files grow bigger and bigger, if I know that what I need is in there. But if I'm working on something more structured, like a manual or document, then that becomes the repository of all my knowledge and that specific project-related info stays away from the infoindex.
Good topic, and one we don't discuss often enough.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:56
[…] Merlin Mann comenta que el hábito de recopilar -o tomar nota- de todos nuestros pendientes nos puede liberar de cierta carga de estrés, pero no nos libera de la necesidad de procesar estos pendientes y colocarlos en el lugar idóneo. Capturing, by itself, will always give you a short and satisfying burst of stress reduction, but it doesn't absolve you of the need to make sure those captured items then get quickly placed into the spots where the really need to live. […]