My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#11

Post by criddell » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #8

Mine is a notebook and a pen. Whatever isn't in the last 3 pages deserves to be forgotten and not done unless it reappears through another context in which case it gets re-added. Writing with a pen also has the advantage that working remotely, people do not wonder if you're sending slack messages or emails instead of paying attention because you're typing. My notebook also doesn't need any privacy features.

A commonly stated benefit of the text file is that it's searchable and easy to backup. If you only care about the last three pages, then searching isn't a problem and if you lose it you've only lost three pages of value. That's probably not a huge problem as well.

For your last point about working remotely, I sometimes wonder if I spend a few hours working through some problem on paper, my chat avatar will go to inactive ("last seen 23 minutes ago") and people might think I've wandered off.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#12

Post by criddell » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

bengale wrote: post #9

I do something similar but with apple notes. Still simple but I get a bit of formatting and some checkboxes, tags and decent search. I can also create reminders that link back to highlighted parts of a note.

You can also add images, scan in documents with your phone or tablet camera, you can sketch with the Apple Pencil (on an iPad), and it does OCR on images you paste in so you can take a picture of a whiteboard and the text on it will be indexed.

My big complaint is that there isn't a decent Windows client. I sometimes will use the web version, but it's maddening because some of the keystrokes for things like word left or word right (ctrl-arrow) don't work.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#13

Post by kgeist » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

I use a simple text file, too. It has four sections: "major", "minor", "done", and a section for random thoughts. Every evening, I copy the file (with remaining unfinished tasks) and give it a new name (for example, "December 23, 2021"). This way I also have a history of everything. It has worked well so far.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#14

Post by superkuh » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

rappatic wrote: post #2

The author makes some points about the benefits of doing this, but I really think he's making things more difficult for himself. Even a basic note-taking app would provide a much larger number of features and be equally easy to use. It's quirky idea but it's really not that practical.

Nope. A note-taking application would not work for 12 years. And it certainly wouldn't work for the 20+ years I've been using a single .txt file. The longevity and ease of longevity of simple plain text is the major benefit.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#15

Post by da-x » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

I can see why a simple text file is working for many people.

Anything that requires you to wait for a program to start, a window to appear, or a webpage to load is very detrimental to the mental mode of note taking because thoughts change even on the slightest of latency. It should be as immediate as picking up a notebook from the table that has a pen attached to it.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#16

Post by blueboo » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

My kingdom for a fast, one-page, multiplatform notes app that could accomplish this

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#17

Post by rav » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

My productivity app is a Git repository (that happens to be a GitLab wiki git repository at $WORK as well) with my "priority queue" text file and the following bash function. The contents of the text file are similar to what Jeff Huang describes in the blog post (but MUCH less organized). Since it's in version control, I can freely delete old content that's no longer relevant for my day-to-day, and then I frequently use git log -p to search for old text in the file if it becomes relevant. The bash command also pushes and pulls automatically, so it can be used across my devices.

        plan-edit() { 
        cd ~/wiki &&
        git diff --exit-code &&
        vim Rav-priority-queue.txt &&
        ! git diff --quiet Rav-priority-queue.txt &&
        git commit -qm 'Update Rav-priority-queue.txt' Rav-priority-queue.txt &&
        git pull -q --rebase &&
        git push -q
        }

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#18

Post by kamaal » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #7

The key to this solution isn’t really the .txt file or the formatting. It’s the ritual. Any productivity system can be made to work once it becomes a habit and therefore your default action. I think .txt files or Org mode are attractive to devs because they feel like something we’d be doing anyway during our day. the same system will work with a paper journal or even a fresh piece of paper every morning if, and only…

This, several times this.

My favorite system for knowledge management is Google Docs(due to obvious advantages- online drive, WYSIWYG etc), and for metadata/task-management tasks(GTD, working things out, mind maps, todo lists, solving software problems) is a plain cheap notebook and a pen.

If you study GTD the hardest aspects of GTD are sticking to routine, and it's very easy to fall off the GTD routine. Its hard to do weekly reviews, its hard to create next tasks etc etc.

Once you establish a cycle that works, its magic.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#19

Post by punkspider » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

I really like this article. Thanks to reading it last year (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22276184) it validated the idea of using simple files.

I used to try various productivity apps because I thought I needed something to help with reducing the "amount of willpower" I needed to keep a to do list.

Ultimately I realized I had been using Sublime Text for years to take temporary notes in a very unorganized manner. Since April 2021 I'm happy with the todo lists/notes I keep in Sublime.

Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)

#20

Post by kamaal » Thu, Dec 23, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #11

vasco wrote: post #8

Mine is a notebook and a pen. Whatever isn't in the last 3 pages deserves to be forgotten and not done unless it reappears through another context in which case it gets re-added. Writing with a pen also has the advantage that working remotely, people do not wonder if you're sending slack messages or emails instead of paying attention because you're typing. My notebook also doesn't need any privacy features.

A commonly stated benefit of the text file is that it's searchable and easy to backup. If you only care about the last three pages, then searching isn't a problem and if you lose it you've only lost three pages of value. That's probably not a huge problem as well. For your last point about working remotely, I sometimes wonder if I spend a few hours working through some problem on paper, my chat avatar will go to inac…

>>A commonly stated benefit of the text file is that it's searchable and easy to backup.

Not all data is same.

Personal Knowledge Database is not the same as metadata things like todo lists, often todo lists don't need searching, back up etc.

Also one must look at tools as things to achieve end goals, not as goals themselves. Data pollution is a thing, and having extra things isnt always good.