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The Magic of the Brain Dump

blog.attendmind.com

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Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#11

Post by espeed »

jabbernotty wrote: post #10

I often have thoughts that I want to write down, while I am at work. Because I am at work (not at home) I often don't write them down. Because of that I'm thinking of developing a 'brain dump' service, that you can send an email to. You would host it on your own device. The service will read it's inbox and add messages from authorized senders to a plain-text repository, and offer the most simple things like login, li…

You can email into your Evernote account:

http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/04/20/quick-tip-friday-em...

Or if you don't like Evernote, you could use Zapier (https://zapier.com/) to email into almost any other Web service with an API.

Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#12

Post by jabbernotty »

espeed wrote: post #11
jabbernotty wrote: post #10

I often have thoughts that I want to write down, while I am at work. Because I am at work (not at home) I often don't write them down. Because of that I'm thinking of developing a 'brain dump' service, that you can send an email to. You would host it on your own device. The service will read it's inbox and add messages from authorized senders to a plain-text repository, and offer the most simple things like login, li…

You can email into your Evernote account: http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/04/20/quick-tip-friday-em... Or if you don't like Evernote, you could use Zapier ( https://zapier.com/ ) to email into almost any other Web service with an API.

Ah, thanks, I didn't know that about Evernote. I've not used Evernote myself because I tend to use Linux, but I'm definitely going to try it with Wine.

Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#13

Post by ims »

jabbernotty wrote: post #12
espeed wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can email into your Evernote account: http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/04/20/quick-tip-friday-em... Or if you don't like Evernote, you could use Zapier ( https://zapier.com/ ) to email into almost any other Web service with an API.

Ah, thanks, I didn't know that about Evernote. I've not used Evernote myself because I tend to use Linux, but I'm definitely going to try it with Wine.

Evernote and Linux user here. Their web app is quite good, and their Android and iOS apps are fantastic. Having also messed around with their native app on Windows, I didn't feel like I was missing too much since the whole point is really the content of the notes.

For what it's worth, there are a couple clones of the native app for Linux including Everpad and Nevernote. Haven't tried them because the web app does everything that seems necessary for me.

Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#14

Post by porker »

espeed wrote: post #2

This little hack works. Until a couple years ago I often had trouble falling asleep at night because I always had to ride the rapid stream of thoughts rushing through my head. One night the stream went meta, and I recognized it needed an outlet. So as an experiment, I bought a stack of legal pads and put them next to my bed. Then over several weeks, I wrote down every thought that came to mind and followed every path…

And were any of the stream of thoughts useful, or was it just an exercise to calm an overactive mind?

Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#15

Post by padraigm »

winter_blue wrote: post #3

This is an excellent piece. I began doing this, rather subconsciously after being overwhelmed by carrying too many things in my head at the same time. A long time I had the belief that "smart people don't need to jote down things to remember -- they can hold it all in their head - they're smart :)" And hey, I'm smart -- so I'm going to do the same. Needless to say, it was a very foolish things to believe in. I would…

I use org-mode, with links between files as necessary and some helper functions to quickly create new files in an organized manner with a single key combination. That particular set of org-mode files looks a lot like a wiki, and I can use the agenda view to quickly see all to-do items without having to necessarily hunt through all of the various files for them.

Re: The Magic of the Brain Dump

#16

Post by espeed »

porker wrote: post #14
espeed wrote: post #2

This little hack works. Until a couple years ago I often had trouble falling asleep at night because I always had to ride the rapid stream of thoughts rushing through my head. One night the stream went meta, and I recognized it needed an outlet. So as an experiment, I bought a stack of legal pads and put them next to my bed. Then over several weeks, I wrote down every thought that came to mind and followed every path…

And were any of the stream of thoughts useful, or was it just an exercise to calm an overactive mind?

Yes, most were related to my startup.
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