Same for me at my previous work, kept a log in a txt file for about a decade.
When I came back visiting my old colleagues one of their gift was my txt file printed on paper, it was a few centimeters thick :)
My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
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Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#52I was just talking about this blog post with a friend yesterday. I’m curious to know the file size of the doc after 7 years.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#53My 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…
Why rebase? I would imaging that preserving history would be a feature. An important feature at that.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#54The 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…
One of my favorite quotes, is one [incorrectly, probably] attributed to Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
I used to have that quote posted on my bathroom mirror - now it's just ingrained. It applies to so many parts of life, whether it's exercise, productivity, starting a business or building relationships.
Related is that motivation is fleeting and only leads to individual acts. Discipline on the other hand is what builds habits. It's what you do day and and day out that leads to success or failure.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#55I do something pretty similar.
I have a big, append-only TXT file that I keep in Dropbox. Most of my notes and bookmarks go there. I sometimes add hashtags, I use #book for books that I might want to read in the future.
If I have too many notes of some kind, I make a separate file for them, I'm considering moving my to read list to its own file, for example.
I kept a separate file with a calendar until I switched to Mac OS, I use the built-in calendar app these days.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#56The 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…
One of my favorite quotes, is one [incorrectly, probably] attributed to Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. I made this realization when at the end of every month I needed to submit my daily work log along with my client invoices I would cobble together notes scattered in different apps, conversations, notebooks, etc. I ended up building an app that would text myself (at the same time every day) a reminder to log what I had done for the day. After a while I didn't need the reminder, I would open up my phone a few mi…
This is quite a nice platform -- I was looking into the SMS space recently as well and thought a similar UI (using SMS to get notifications around) would work. I'm curious, do many people use the SMS note save feature? Or is many people the wrong unit of measure for an SMS service? (I've wondered if users would have a reversion to things like this as well...)
SMS has been a surprising key to success. I think because messaging is such a routine, having the note-taking ability embedded creates more surface area between the note-taker and the thing that saves the notes. The named contact that shows up in your recent messages or the share menu listing recent contacts are areas you might trigger the impulse to save something.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#58I've always kept a text file or spreadsheet of things to do, priorities, etc... My biggest problem isn't keeping a list and getting organized, it's remembering to look at my list. I tend to space out for days working on a problem and forget to look at my list. I've experienced a big productivity boost by using the desktop background of my 43" monitor as a whiteboard (blackboard actually). I have an jpg the size of my…
I do something similar for language learning, every new tab in Firefox shows a flashcard. If I'm in the middle of something I can ignore it but when my minds already wandering I tend to notice the word there, hopefully it helps.
I'm working on a simple flash card app for learning. People have decided to call those "wisdom cards" and I plan to have a folder of them for my app to bring up once in awhile.
The coolest thing about vision board desktop background is that I save them every two weeks or so and start another. I now have a folder of two years of my thinking in visual form that's easy to review in just a few minutes. It may be that this works for me because I'm a visual person and others need to write it down and rewrite it down often to learn it.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#59I moved to mutt 10 years ago, no regret and its the first thing i look in the morning
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file (2020)
#60The 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…
> However, I have a lot of peers who couldn’t hang on to a paper journal or TODO list during the day if they tried
A bit more meta is that the habit itself is primarily all I need. I journal, write things down, etc... and almost never look at them again. The habit of doing is all it takes for me to set my day on the right trajectory.