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My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

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Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#191

Post by adharmad »

quesera wrote: post #182
mushufasa wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do the same in vi/vim/neovim, in a custom filetype with syntax highlighting for TODO items, status markers, tags, code blocks, etc: "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 c…

Care to share your file format with some dummy entries?

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#193

Post by danielrk »

I used to use a .txt file like this for over 10 years that I edited with Vim and could also edit on my phone using Dropbox. And then I used the Mac Notes app and realized the search, sync, autosave experience, and other properties made Notes way more useful for me.

Similarly, for over 10 years I used to compile my CV with LaTeX using a fancy template I designed, until I realized the time it took to edit it was just not worth it. So I pasted it into a Google Docs file with Arial font and just text bullet points and no rich text features. My life became way easier and my CV looks way less annoying.

(This may be irrelevant to the original post but) I found that a lot of the optimizations I thought were good for me were stemming from an unnecessary attachment to a minimalist technical aesthetic.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#194

Post by NoPicklez »

d--b wrote: post #77

I don't know how to articulate it, but I could never do anything like this. The ability to organize one's life like this is so foreign to me, it's almost like he's describing what it's like to be an octopus. I think it may be my emotional state that I can't manage. There is absolutely no way, I could decide what I'd be doing the next day every night. The thing is my state of mind would prevent me from doing half the…

Anyone, I mean anyone can write a simple to do list.

Surely when you go to bed at night or wake up in the morning you have in your mind what it is you want or need to do that day.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#195

Post by tasty_freeze »

At my first job out of college in 1985 I worked for a unknown, unsuccessful mainframe company. I started a TODO.TXT file when I arrived; when I left a year later I put my TODO.TXT (along with ADDRESS.TXT, DATES.TXT) on a 5.25" floppy and took it with me to the next company, and the next, and the next. I didn't buy my own computer until 1997, and those files finally made it to a machine I own and control. Those files have been in continuous use for 39 years. TODO.TXT's icon is the upper left icon on my desktop and I view and edit it multiple times a day.

I now have 46 .txt files for managing things, where each one pertains to some particular topic: food, music, travel, a website, etc. All are listed in my main TODO.TXT and since I use vim, I can just move the cursor on top of any of the files and type "gf" to jump to that other file. When I'm done, I hit Ctrl-O to jump back to the original file. It is hypertext without the html.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#196

Post by usernamed7 »

inferense wrote: post #88

there's a much better way providing simplicity with full data ownership and real tasks out of the box in daily documents https://acreom.com

Sorry but the fact that you would reply to a thread about a TXT file with the gibberish "providing simplicity with full data ownership and real tasks out of the box" shows you don't get your own product, and that you are unable to make a compelling case to use it over a simple TXT file.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#197

Post by hawski »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #195

At my first job out of college in 1985 I worked for a unknown, unsuccessful mainframe company. I started a TODO.TXT file when I arrived; when I left a year later I put my TODO.TXT (along with ADDRESS.TXT, DATES.TXT) on a 5.25" floppy and took it with me to the next company, and the next, and the next. I didn't buy my own computer until 1997, and those files finally made it to a machine I own and control. Those files…

You made your private wiki.

I used to use Zim and it was splendid. Then I went down a few rabbit holes and explored a more GUI-less approach, but in my case nothing ever approached the level of Zim. It is more on me, than on tools. Now, when I'm doing a job that finally doesn't cause me a burn out I am slowly going back to Zim and I like it.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#198

Post by renewiltord »

swah wrote: post #169
renewiltord wrote: post #118

Same. I saw a very productive friend just build a list like this: - Thing to do - Subtask before that can be done - Another level deeper - Another task And he just deleted things from the list when done. I adopted it and quite like it. I've tried keeping it in git, using some tool, etc. but in the end the Notes app on Mac with the same format helped because I dislike the strike-through stuff. It just occupies cogniti…

What about attachments? :) Comments on new stuff on that topic? Etc. I need more, at least something like Todoist/Ticktick...

Understood. I do better without those things because I'm more likely to over-record than miss out on information but I can see how things land differently for someone with the inverse abilities.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#199

Post by mortify »

kbos87 wrote: post #128
cyanydeez wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This hits hard. As I've gotten older I've accumulated a lot more complexity in my life. Finances that I need to take seriously, properties, family stuff, a decade+ of depth in my career... it takes a lot to keep track of everything, and to make it legible when you come back to it a year or 5 years later.

My guiding principle for good note-taking is whether they can be understood by someone who has no background on what I'm writing about because that person will be me 3-5 years from now.

Re: My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)

#200

Post by mortify »

plg wrote: post #125

I have been using Apple Notes which is great because I can read/write in the moment on a Mac, on iPad, on iPhone, and everything is (almost always) synced and stored in the cloud. I have been doing one note per day. On the other hand, PTF (Pity The Fool) who tries to export these notes. I know some people have written exporters but of course, whenever Apple decides to change format, PTF. I would like to change to a m…

If you don't need collaborative notes, Memos is a great markdown supported option.
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