I have tried almost all the tools but nothing scales well. What do you use and how?
Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#2Org-mode for in-class notes, since I'm a student.
Gitit personal wiki for technical information (my blog post: " rel="nofollow">http://nathantypanski.com/blog/2014-07-09-personal-wiki.html...).
Google Calendar has my schedule, including where I am at any time during the day. It syncs with my phone, laptop, and tablet. While I would prefer something plaintext (like Org-Mode offers) the Android compatibility is not as good.
Google Tasks (integrated with calendar) and Google Keep for on-the-go notes and tasks.
Paper notes in two-column Cornell style in bound notebooks " rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/comments/27l7tx/whats_you....
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#3A post-it note on my desk if I need a reminder for something today/tomorrow. Notepad.exe for copying/pasting code, URLs, numbers while working. Trello for everything else.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#4For many years, i have tried many things:
- Apps such as Wonderlist, Clear...
- Entries in my GMail Calender
- Notes App on my Phone
- Post-it notes
- Writing reminder emails to myself
At the end of the day, nothing really worked for me. What DID work for me: a Whiteboard on my front door.
I have all my project ideas, to-do lists and appointments on there.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#5I use Trello, and then I have it sync with Google Calendar. That way, I can handle individual tasks with the flexibility that Trello allows, but use Google Calendar when I need a broad picture of due dates.
For me, to-do lists are far too limiting. Trello strikes the right balance, however, when it comes to customizability.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#6Org-mode, gcal, notebook/pen/paper.
Keep it all in text, avoid vendor lock in. My workflow is timeless and needs to outlast the latest trend.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#7I've played with a few different things, but right now I just have a plain text file at the top-level of my dropbox directory, as a rough short-term notes and to-do list. Then I turn these into work task as all-day events in my google calendar. I shuffle them around the calendar to plan out my week. When completed, I delete each of them. For each month, I keep a simple plaintext record of each item finished this way. Makes it pretty easy to put together quarterly or annual performance reports.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#8Recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8270759
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#9I use a set of plain text files in a directory that is synced between all of my machines. This is flexible and basic enough that it can be adapted to any use case or productivity system as necessary. When I need a more specific workflow, I can develop something on top of it. Staying with plain text and having reliable file sync is just a foundation.
I access the files with a fluid interactive interface and full text search provided by Notational Velocity / nvALT (http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/), for when I'm in a graphical environment, or my own NV-inspired shell script(https://github.com/lfam/n) for when I'm in a console. My primitive script has Bash and Zsh completion and gets out of my way pretty well... could be improved a lot, though.
I use Syncthing (http://syncthing.net/) to sync this directory between my devices. Syncthing is a FOSS decentralized file sync program that works on Linux, OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Plus there is a work in progress Android app. I recommend it highly if you are looking for a FOSS alternative to Dropbox or BitTorrent Sync. It works right now which is saying a lot compared to its competitors, and it is truly decentralized (no server / client architecture like Seafile).
If anyone here is an Android developer, they could use your help, especially with the filesystem.
I've been meaning to explore org-mode. Maybe next time I take a long plane ride.
Re: Ask HN: How do you manage ideas, tasks, notes and other stuff?
#10I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Evernote. Unless I am misunderstanding your question.
I just save things in Evernote. Physical documents get scanned and uploaded. I also use BitTorrent Sync for things like music and videos. Extremely sensitive stuff like banking documents are encrypted and synced as well. I don't upload that stuff.