Also do it but with a Google Doc in the form of monthly daily logs (i.e Feb 2020 Daily Log).
In addition to keeping track of daily to dos, there's also a backlog at the top and a future anticipated events.
It has become a big part of my routine and feel very happy about it. I've done that for the past 3 years and like the simplicity of this workflow :)
My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
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Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#252I use one large mind-dump file (~15 years) in Apple Notes and keep todos for the next day on a single sheet of paper which I throw out in the evening — why would anyone archive their accomplished tasks? I love destroying the past every single day.
“Ugh this was such a weird week, I don’t feel like I got a damn thing done.” looks back over a week full of lots of yak-shaving and distractions “Oh! I feel better. I got a lot done! It just wasn’t on the stuff I think is really important.”
The Bullet Journal book actually has a really good point about this, which is that you should be archiving this stuff to have the exact realization you just pointed out and then figure out how to adjust your behavior to focus on things that are actually meaningful to you.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#253This is very close to what I do, with a few modifications. Biggest difference is that I use Emacs Org-mode ( https://orgmode.org/ ) which automates things like date strings, building a daily agenda, adding due dates, and the monotony of getting your itemized lists properly indented. (and a whole lot more) Everything lives in my TODO.org file that's mirrored via dropbox between all my devices and on my phone where I u…
You sound like someone that could really use Syncthing if youre into your own DIY cloud. I absolutely love it and I don't need an account to use it either.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
not OP but I put this file on Dropbox, their mobile app has an editor that works for markdown or plain text.
I've also had success using syncthing for this if you want something self hosted.
What do you use for editing on mobile, for files synced by syncthing?
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#255I use a single text file, have done this for decades. I dump everything into it and don't worry too much about structure, it's an incredible resource for "remembering" minutia, things like "what was that server that i thought might have had some issues last August?" Just a quick control-S and I'm there. My current 7+ year old notes file has about 100K lines in it right now. I can tell you what I was doing last year,…
Being doing this for years also, occasionally emailing to myself as a backup, mine is at nearly 60k lines. Top tip is to add meta tags. I suffix them with a colon to help with searching. For example, the section containing my git notes begins with this line: Git notes: / Git: / Git commands: / Github: / Git bash: And any time I search for something I didn't have a tag for, then I add a new one, even misspellings.
Funny how similar this one it is to mine: I use tags surrounded by colons so I can attach a few of them and grep them easily (distinguishing them from normal text contents)
Ex. :label1:label2:labeln:
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#256I think an ideal system would include voice notes. The problem is, I would really like it if the voice notes were geotagged and timestamped AND really easy to record. I think a smartphone app is to cumbersome. It should be a single physical button, just for that purpose. What I really would like is a minimal device with a microphone and a button, that stores the notes in my phone. I have not figured out how yet.
My Samsung smart watch does a not bad job at this requirement.
I use “just press record” on my Apple Watch for this all the time.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#257stuff.txt
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#258I currently use Google Tasks for Todos and I honestly have never been happier. To make Google Tasks work you have to be using Gmail and Google Calendar (which may be a non-starter for some people), but if you are using those already then Google Tasks is worth taking a look. The beauty of Google Tasks is it lives alongside your email, integrates seamlessly with the calendar, and automatically synchronizes across devic…
I like how you can drag tasks directly to Google Calendar. Do you know if it is possible to drag them as events, not reminders? I prefer to block entire time slots as events in my calendar because it helps me better manage my time. For example, I would add a 3 hour long event called "refactor hello_world" or a 2 hour one "find lost socks" and dedicate these time block to these specific activities. Unfortunately, you…
I also prefer to track todos this way because it shows me how much free time I can realistically commit to new things. There was a calendar app that did this very well called Timeful, which Google acquired a few years ago. Some of the features from Timeful have been rolled into GCal, but this one doesn’t seem to have made it.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#259A good way to sync text files between mobile device and Mac is by using Simplenote app (https://simplenote.com/) on the phone and nvAlt on Mac to sync and Vim to edit the text file. I use NvAlt just to sync with Simplenote, as it works perfectly. SimpleNote also uses markdown format, and even does checkbox / todo using markdown `- [ ]`. On the Mac, I can use vim to edit the text file, and nvAlt will sync any changes.
Re: My productivity app for the past 12 years has been a single .txt file
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
not OP but I put this file on Dropbox, their mobile app has an editor that works for markdown or plain text.
I open drafts in Gmail with no recipient and keep notes there. Super convenient since I usually have it open anyway on the desktop, it works great on mobile too, and gmail search makes it easy to find stuff.
I've been doing the same for about 15 years, except I actually send the emails to myself and have a special tag for them. Unfortunately, Gmail search has failed to find things for me in recent years that I know are there and know are tagged with a particular key phrase, usually for things that are from the 2009-2013 time period. I've lost faith that they are actually keeping everything, or perhaps that they are keeping everything but their search algorithm may sometimes return "no results" in order to be fast instead of actually falling back to some kind of deep search.