Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paper often wins for a lot of things.
Taking hard-copy printouts of code to study it for bugs, design or code review is one area some people I know use it for. Edit: I guess even for non-code text files, though I haven't used it for that purpose myself, yet. Bet many authors do.
My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
181–190 of 272 posts
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#182I use a similar system, but I duplicate and rename the file at the start of each day. Then I remove stuff that got done the previous day. Or stuff that is old and not relevant anymore. The system has evolved over the years. The greatest thing about it is how flexible it is. When faced with new requirements (new projects, job change, etc) I can just start taking notes in a different way and see if it sticks. I also co…
I used to do this but that made it harder to search on the occasion I'm looking for a prior note. I do everything in vim and it's more keystrokes to search across separate files. I've been using one file for 2-3 years now and it's only 1mb.
"my/work/xxx/201810.notes" 34502L, 1946600B written
5.5 years on this particular file, but I've been using the same system for at least twice as long as that.The datestamp is the most recent time I thought it might be useful to rotate into a new file. It was not! I find it much more convenient to have everything in a single topic-based file, although I do separate personal from work, and employers from each other.
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually the slowness of Obsidian is caused by plugins. Try to have 50+ plugins and you will feel the slowness even in a small vault.
What hardware/OS are you using? I have a shitload of plugins but it's lightning fast for me on Mac.
I currently have 147 community plugins installed. Is your shitload bigger than my shitload? :-)
I don't have all of them enabled though. Only about 2/3. :-)
It's not only the number of enabled plugins that matters. Some graphical plugins eat almost no resources. But then there are other plugins that are constantly rescanning files and O is not necessarily "n", but worse than that.
You can start with setting up the following plugins to their full potential and see how it goes. :-) Breadcrumbs Dataview Dynamic Table of Contents Filename Heading Sync Juggl Link Favicons Linter Omnisearch Spaced Repetition Supercharged links
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#184Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#185I tend to format my plaintext notes as markdown to add a small amount of organization. I also have some light folder/file organization to break things into categories/topics/days, depending on what it is. That gives me a nice clean slate to work from each day, but lets me pick up where I left off on more long-term stuff. Finally, I push it all to a private Github repo so I can get to my notes easily from wherever I a…
I'm guessing you're younger than 40. At some point, either your jobs novelty will wear off or your memory will just degrade. what happened to me is the lack of novelty in day to day and long term plans created a lot of unreliable data. having done a task multiple times, recalling the latest event details became a mixed bag of questionable facts. I still have the same capacity but now because I had such a great capaci…
"His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#186I tried doing it this way. While it sounds nice, and apparently works for some people, my biggest problem was stuff getting buried hundreds of lines into the file. I couldn't trust it to remind me of anything beyond the few items at the top of the file. Another problem was having everything as a big blob of text mixed together, unless you take on some overhead when entering things (put them in the right place) or dur…
This system helps me focus on my most immediate work and still have peace of mind that my system won’t lose the reminders in my later file.
I store my todo files in Dropbox so I can access them from multiple devices (including my phone) and get automated backup for free.
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#187Previously standalone (libre) now google sheet
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#188I use a similar system, but I duplicate and rename the file at the start of each day. Then I remove stuff that got done the previous day. Or stuff that is old and not relevant anymore. The system has evolved over the years. The greatest thing about it is how flexible it is. When faced with new requirements (new projects, job change, etc) I can just start taking notes in a different way and see if it sticks. I also co…
What are the benefits of keeping it in git? Are the commit messages useful? Not trying to knock the idea, I just can't imagine branching or reverting or being curious about the history of a to-do list. Maybe it could be cool for statistics over time. But I'm really curious to hear how you're using it!
they can be ruthlessly minimal.
The intermediate note-to-self stuff, the reference material, the stuff that was cancelled, all can be deleted.
But you have the peace of mind that you can get it back.
This might be especially important if it is a text file you run your life with.
My neighbor needs the name of the plumber we used. What was the amount of the bill? When did I order xyz last? What was the size of the wiper blades of my car?
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure how you ensure waiters do their jobs. Do you follow them to the kitchen?!
Remind them when they inevitably forget. Unless they remember, then they get tipped more. I hadn't thought of following them to the kitchen....maybe next time. ;)
With the builder - yep, told him we don’t need the stud wall. Met him every morning to discuss issues and progress. I start taking notes and sending them post meeting. Did not talk about stud wall because it’s no longer being done. 2 weeks later, stud wall appears. Sigh. Ask him to remove stud wall.
He tries makes me feel like it’s my fault, but fails.
Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)
#190I tend to format my plaintext notes as markdown to add a small amount of organization. I also have some light folder/file organization to break things into categories/topics/days, depending on what it is. That gives me a nice clean slate to work from each day, but lets me pick up where I left off on more long-term stuff. Finally, I push it all to a private Github repo so I can get to my notes easily from wherever I a…
I'm guessing you're younger than 40. At some point, either your jobs novelty will wear off or your memory will just degrade. what happened to me is the lack of novelty in day to day and long term plans created a lot of unreliable data. having done a task multiple times, recalling the latest event details became a mixed bag of questionable facts. I still have the same capacity but now because I had such a great capaci…