Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jeffhuang.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 205 posts

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

#171

Post by q1w2 »

kamaal wrote: post #18
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…

I was using Google Docs until one day an inspector demanded my PERSONAL Google account credentials because they were inspecting the company I worked for - for something I wasn't even involved in.

They got a court order, contacted Google, and did a Google Takeout of literally all of my data.

Now I use markdown doc on a remotely encrypted share via WinSCP.

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

#172

Post by xenodium »

dempedempe wrote: post #164
xenodium wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on making org more portable (at least bring parts to iOS), via https://plainorg.com and flathabits.com. Karl Voit is doing the hard work of rallying folks to promote org markup outside of Emacs and hopefully create a diverse ecosystem under the Orgdown proposal https://gitlab.com/publicvoit/orgdown

I have yet to try PlainOrg, but loved your app, Flathabits!

Thank you. Nice to hear that!

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

#173

Post by q1w2 »

AreYouElite wrote: post #73

ORG-MODE ORG-MODE ORG-MODE Jeff, everything you do could be done with org-mode by using a key combination. it would also add a calender with an agenda and schedule and and and and the main thing: it's a text file just like what you are using. this is a nice how to (no relation to me) https://youtu.be/SzA2YODtgK4

I'm using a markdown big file. What features in org-mode are really worth making me look at it?

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

#174

Post by q1w2 »

yosito wrote: post #106

I'm using an .md file that I sync with Nextcloud between all of my devices. I edit it with Obsidian on my laptops, and the Nextcloud Notes app on Android, which also has a nice widget that allows me to pin my todo.md on my homescreen and formats the markdown checklist appropriately. It's the most flexible system I've ever used. The only missing features for me are the ability to reorder items quickly on mobile and ad…

I use Typora, and sync with WinSCP. same same - but different.

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

#175

Post by jll29 »

ehnto wrote: post #83

I have a one-liner bash alias that stores whatever I feed it into a file by todays date, alias "note"="echo $1 >> ~/.notes/`date+'%Y-%m-%d'`.note" So you end up with a folder of files formatted like this 2021-11-02.note. Then to view them I either just cat it, or jump in to a text editor. I have an alias to cat todays .note alias "notes"="cat ~/.notes/`date+'%Y-%m-%d'`.note" I have sometimes considered fleshing it ou…

Thanks. Space between "date" and "+"?

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

#176

Post by COAGULOPATH »

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…

Text files are uniquely good at creating habits.

You can write them everywhere, read them everywhere, send them everywhere, effortlessly back them up and copy them. You absolutely own a text file on your computer. They're maximally cross-compatible (barring some quirks like UNIX/DOS linebreaks). Every computer and phone has a basic text processor.

Compare with a dedicated tool like Evernote - I now have to worry about the installing it, maintaining it, having my workflow broken by a new update, the developers selling my data to China, etc.

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

#177

Post by Lhiw »

kamaal wrote: post #20
criddell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#178

Post by m-p-3 »

COAGULOPATH wrote: post #176
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…

Text files are uniquely good at creating habits. You can write them everywhere, read them everywhere, send them everywhere, effortlessly back them up and copy them. You absolutely own a text file on your computer. They're maximally cross-compatible (barring some quirks like UNIX/DOS linebreaks). Every computer and phone has a basic text processor. Compare with a dedicated tool like Evernote - I now have to worry abou…

I'm quite familiar with the CommonMark syntax that I use it without really thinking, so I write down my plaintext notes that way, and if I need to "beautify" it before sending it to someone then most of the legwork is already done.

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

#179

Post by xenodium »

q1w2 wrote: post #173
AreYouElite wrote: post #73

ORG-MODE ORG-MODE ORG-MODE Jeff, everything you do could be done with org-mode by using a key combination. it would also add a calender with an agenda and schedule and and and and the main thing: it's a text file just like what you are using. this is a nice how to (no relation to me) https://youtu.be/SzA2YODtgK4

I'm using a markdown big file. What features in org-mode are really worth making me look at it?

Org is pretty rich. Folks often pick and choose different bits. There's a great writeup that gives a fairly extensive tour: Org Mode - Organize Your Life In Plain Text! http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

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

#180

Post by heresie-dabord »

blueboo wrote: post #16

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

I use git and Mercurial (command hg). If you don't know Mercurial, it is a SCM/VCS written in Python.[1] You can install it with

python3 -m pip install mercurial

In addition to all the virtues of version control, Mercurial can also be run with an HTTP interface that is rather good.

Thus, you could have a main box at home with a main Mercurial repository and run the daemon in the root of the repository:

hg serve -d --config web.push_ssl=No --config "web.allow_push=*" -A hg-access.log -E hg-errors.log

Your laptop would also have Mercurial installed. You would clone from and push to the server. You could view the server content from any client using a browser.

I do not ask for any kingdom, but a good friendship is always welcome. ^_^

[1] https://www.mercurial-scm.org/

Post reply on HN