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Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#31

Post by stared »

I used to track things in Evernote, but now I have fallen in love with Obsidian and never looked back (migrated all notes there).

The UI is simple, so I focus on the content. As it is Markdown-based, I am not afraid to be locked in, and I back up everything with git.

I use the Calendar plugin, making creating daily (and weekly) notes easy. With each daily note, I write things in the style of Bullet Journal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLnY9L1c-M) - all things to do, but started from scratch (so I don't accumulate any TODO debt, which is a nightmare for many of us and people with ADHD in particular). I add all I did that day anyway (whether planned or not) - sometimes an "unproductive" day was full of chores and errands that I had forgotten about but were necessary.

Also, I have folders for drafts (of blog posts and long emails), practical notes (e.g. checklist for traveling), the archive (of re-usable things (e.g. my FB posts I might want to keep).

For me, large files containing everything make me feel lost and confused - all in all, you can easily search Markdown files - be it with Obsidian built-in search, Visual Studio Code, or anything else. YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#32

Post by etrautmann »

fafhnir wrote: post #24

Dont't "organize" your life. Live it! you dont't organize eating, sleeping, sh tting, loving,... Did you ever forgot to eat or hug your beloved one and organize a birthday party for your wife / children / whoever? so why do you want to "organize" the other aspects of your life? The only things i need to push me forward in the important aspects of my life are values*. The values are working like a compass and pushing…

This doesn’t ring true to me. There’s plenty I want to do in accordance with my values and emotional priorities that I fail to do because my organization could be better. Planning to do things further ahead with family and friends would be “living” and yet I often don’t because my planning could improve. I’m sure others have different challenges.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#33

Post by 4878241143 »

fafhnir wrote: post #24

Dont't "organize" your life. Live it! you dont't organize eating, sleeping, sh tting, loving,... Did you ever forgot to eat or hug your beloved one and organize a birthday party for your wife / children / whoever? so why do you want to "organize" the other aspects of your life? The only things i need to push me forward in the important aspects of my life are values*. The values are working like a compass and pushing…

yeh and a natural way to remind me to pick up drywall from lowes is to use a reminders app, you know because I have a poor memory.

I'm not sure your method is going to help there.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#34

Post by bayindirh »

caipira wrote: post #18

I've being developing my own micro-cloud for the last ten years - There I've wrote my own email client, password manager, finance book, OTP, movies, music, notes, calendar, backup... and a lot of other micro apps. It works fantastic for me, and I'd recommend you to try setting up an instance of NextCloud, which can achieve similar results. My problem with org-mode, Obsidian, etc is that they are attention black holes…

I personally use Obsidian without any community plugins across two vaults, and it works absolutely fantastic. I do not plan to add any plugins to my installation(s) as long as they lack on some aspect pretty horribly.

I was able to consolidate 7 years of office notes divided in two applications in a week, 25 minutes day, into a new hierarchy, and did it with Obsidian as-is. I can't look from the perspective where one needs a month to optimize an application even before writing their first note in it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#35

Post by stared »

fafhnir wrote: post #24

Dont't "organize" your life. Live it! you dont't organize eating, sleeping, sh tting, loving,... Did you ever forgot to eat or hug your beloved one and organize a birthday party for your wife / children / whoever? so why do you want to "organize" the other aspects of your life? The only things i need to push me forward in the important aspects of my life are values*. The values are working like a compass and pushing…

Unless you fail to remember about paying bills, taking medications, picking up deliveries, attending meetings, registering on time, filling taxes, not overbooking oneself, etc, etc.

Even though something is one's core value, it is still challenging to focus on executing it. This is especially true for people with ADHD. But most people who accomplish things are able (one way or the other) to organize themselves.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#36

Post by mbrezu »

I use text files. One text file per day, named `yyyy-MM-dd.yml`.

YAML! Shudder! But it's the best way I found to enter Markdown with some metadata at the top.

Each day file has multiple Yaml documents, with ids like `yyyy-MM-dd/number`. I use [ ] for todos and turn them into [x] when they are done. This way, searching/grepping for `[ ]` gives me a list of stuff not done yet. I sometimes have a list of things to do in my day. I move the `[ ]`s to the next day at the end of the current day (or start of the next).

I use Visual Studio Code snippets to enter the metadata.

Example:

    ---
    id: 2023-10-13/1
    links:
    tags:
    project:
    text: |
        This text field is **Markdown**, not **YAML**.

        - first note
            - [ ] todo 1
        - second note
The `links` item points to other notes by id (it's an array).

The idea of having ids with daily counters is from https://www.soenkeahrens.de/en/takesmartnotes.

[edits: formatting the yaml, mention 'how to take smart notes' book, mention that the `text` is Markdown]

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#37

Post by jesperlang »

Live a simpler life. Optimize for spare time. Then you don't need all these tools to organize your chaos. Periodically, I get an urge to "organize" my life but when I start writing down digital TODO lists and fill in calendars they end up gaping almost empty, so I stop. Today, if I need to do something I write it down on a post-it and put it on my desk (right now there are two post-its with four bullet points). Those few time-sensitive events gets an event in the calender with associated alarm (this week it was two events).

Yes I do things, but those are hobbies and occasional hangouts, not hard to remember! :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#38

Post by caipira »

ejlxsh wrote: post #23
caipira wrote: post #18

I've being developing my own micro-cloud for the last ten years - There I've wrote my own email client, password manager, finance book, OTP, movies, music, notes, calendar, backup... and a lot of other micro apps. It works fantastic for me, and I'd recommend you to try setting up an instance of NextCloud, which can achieve similar results. My problem with org-mode, Obsidian, etc is that they are attention black holes…

> I've being developing my own micro-cloud for the last ten years - There I've wrote my own email client, password manager, finance book, OTP, movies, music, notes, calendar, backup... and a lot of other micro apps … > My problem with org-mode, Obsidian, etc is that they are attention black holes, you focus all of your time installing plugins and configuring your workspace that by the time you're done with that you d…

Not really, in the sense that the idea of a lot of these apps are "customization and plugins", and I wanted something that had it all, required 0 config and was totally opinionated. I can set up a new environment just by doing docker-compose up, that simplicity was always my goal 0.

Yes, it took time to develop it, but I would be working on another shiny thing anyway as I like to work on side projects, so I see that as a net gain.

Re: Ask HN: How do you organize your life?

#39

Post by tootie »

nine_zeros wrote: post #15

Calendar for appointments but that's about it. I try to make my life a little more free-flowing so that it doesn't feel like work. I live with a bit more spontaneity. Text my friends out for a spontaneous dinner, go out spontaneously with wife, make spontaneous weekend trips. Life seems more fun this way.

Same. I have Google Calendar that I share with my wife. Anything that requires us to be somewhere or do something goes in the calendar. That's about it.
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