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How Do You Manage the Information In Your Life?
An anonymous reader writes "How do you manage the multitude of information sources in your lives? How do you keep track of the electronics or programming projects you're working on, or the collection of photos you took from your last holiday, or the notes and reading you're doing to learn a new language? Do you have a personal wiki, a blog, or maybe a series of tablet based notes, or voice recordings? Or is it pen and paper, and a blank book for each different hobby? I'm a student, and like most of you, have a few different interests to keep track of (as well as work). But I realise I also have a little OCD, and struggle a bit to keep on top of information (whether hobbies or personal life) in a way that I feel I have complete control over. So how do you all do it?"
Between long and short-term memory is intermediate-term memory. I let my brain manage it, unless it's something that I won't use frequently enough and might forget, in which case I toss it in a text file I call 'chaos' and surround it with keywords I can search for. I've been doing the 'chaos' thing for years now, kind of a catch-all database.
On my monitor at work, or on the fridge at home.
Other than that I figure, if I don't remember it it probably wasn't that important..
Emacs org-mode (http://orgmode.org). Your life in plain text. Nothing else compares.
My first line of defense is that I try to keep things to a minimum. If I have more than 3 things going on, I will delay most of them and do a mediocre job on the others because I'm not focused.
However, to answer your question, the best strategy I've ever used was a single notebook to track everything. Every item gets a bullet and every day gets a new page. If something didn't get done, it gets rewritten on the page for the next day. That means everything is in one place and having to rewrite the items every day is annoying, so items I don't really care about will be dropped from the list. If necessary, the bullets can reference outside information like, "Implement request in John's email 'Need a favor' received on 10/24/2010."
If you decide to resurrect an old project, you can flip through the notebook to find the bullet items regarding that project to help get yourself back up to speed.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
This is an OS X based outlining system that supports images, sounds, text, pretty much whatever. I use several outlines. One contains general information, from password and login data for every web site I use to ideas for t-shirts and guitar tabs; the other is an organized timeline, a diary of sorts, that has every year since I was born in it, and all the events I have been able to remember from before I started using it, and all the significant events since (much more dense there, of course.)
The collapsible outline format is ideal for a timeline; All decades but the current one are closed; all years in the current decade but the current one are closed; all months but the current one are closed; so the display is very compact, yet I have almost instant access to anything, any time, organized and coherent. Just as an aside, once written, I was able to recall a lot more by reading it to myself as if it were a story... concurrent events floated up to the surface almost unbidden... highly recommended if you're into journaling.
For everything else, it works very well, though a lot depends on the initial format you pick. Mine ended up with six root headings.
Under each of those are many more headings and megabytes of textual content I've generated over the years. Also images, musical performances (of mine), poetry, etc. Some of it came from text files I maintained prior to obtaining this software; I'm glad those days are gone. I'm sure other's organizations would be different, mine grew somewhat organically, and I might do it differently today, but it works extremely well as is, so then again, maybe not.
I'm not affiliated with the program developers at all; I'm just a really satisfied customer. For the money, the organizational chops I gained were hugely worth it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I too am a Mac user at home. I use Yojimbo as a catchall for important emails and web pages that I "print to Yojimbo). I also save many of these in my email program in appropriate folders (thus doubling my chances of finding something). With documents I am a good filer of information in fairly well organized folders and sub folders. At work on a PC I don't have an equivalent of Yojimbo (I wish I did and this thread reminds me to look into this further). The corporate email system (Notes) is really non-intuitive on how to save emails in folders that will be available for a long time in the future. The Notes mail database size is limited by the company so files are "archived" without my permission. And yet this does not really work well (and since not under my control I can't attempt to fix). Archives get moved to different locations (server, my computer, various folders) with each revision of Notes and receipt of new computers over time. So I gave up. I am just as good at saving documents so I can find them in the future, I just can't find the email that might have been with them. I keep a phone log at work and urgent things come in by phone or I can put down urgent To Do items as I have to look at this log regularly. Don't really use stickies on a computer for this stuff.
Write the things you need to do down on postits. Put into a "todo" area on a door or something. Then take two[1] out, stick them into in-progress and do them[2].
Each one completed gets a sweetie.
[1] Limit the number, and do the important ones first. The more you have going on, the longer it takes and the less you actually get done.
[2] keep it real, and short. A week or two at most. Y'know, break things down into stuff that can actually be done.
Deleted
Same here. Organized text files. There is nothing more portable and easier to back up.
For example, on my file server I have a folder called Projects. Within it is a text file with potential ideas, as well as folders for each project I'm working on or have worked on, each of those containing their own text file. I use a good tabbed editor (notepad++ or kate) so I don't have to constantly re-open all the active documents on each reboot.
The only disadvantage I've found is that if you want a nice pretty interface for organizing it, you're SOL. That doesn't bother me because I value portability and speed above all else when it comes to my insanely important stuff. Besides, entering a new thought is as simple as pressing enter twice to start a new paragraph. Searching is as simple as "grep -ir" or ^F.
You are on the highway headed strait to Nervous Breakdown City if you think that keeping track of all those devices and methods you've mentioned is going to be possible throughout your life. I recommend you take a timeout and get into Zen Buddism or Stoicism. A very good example of the basic principles of those applied to modern life you can find here, an article on low information diet by author Tim Ferriss.
I've been into computers and modern information technology since 24 years and have come back to reducing the material goods I own and the stuff I worry about to the amount that I had when I started studying. 99% of the people I meet in everyday life continously bite off more than they can chew, raking away upwards of 11 hours per day with studies, work, yoga, jogging, carousing with buddies every odd night, gym, mingling with dozens of art and media projects at a time, networking, family and tending to their S.O., etc. ... and you my friend sound a bit like one of the lot.
Mind you, I do keep notes of everyday things - in one single book that I carry around with me. All goes in there, aside from some notes I take on my blackberry and less than a handfull of textfiles on Google Apps and my PC when I haven't got the book on me. I spread my to-do lists that way too, which keeps the items on them below 20 at all times - a strategy I highly recommend to *anyone*, as long 2-do lists don't get done. I've had that blank spiralbind artscetch notebook for 6 years now and I expect it to fill up within the next two years or so. Then all get a new one. Makes maybe a dozen notebooks for my entire life, which actually is a reasonable amount if you ask me. They also serve as a sort of diary, which I've come to like.
Digital Life wise I use google apps for a few online notes and Git to version and sync my Workfiles, Music and Fotos across my MacMini and my Ubuntu Laptop. I do have a delicious account, but if I'm honest, I hardly revisit more than 5 Links of more than 200 any more than twice a year - and even then it's only out of curiosity about what was so important back then. I too have upwards of 60 software projekts that I started throughout the last decade and have never finished, most of which I archived away last year. I still have 10 or so lying around in my 'Work' folder and i've dragged around more webdomains than I will ever be able to handle ever since the first dot-com bubble. I expect to get two or three of my personal projects on the road within the next 2 years if I'm lucky, and by now I'm smart enough to know that they'll only gain critical mass if I stick with those from there on out. ... Or do you think the Kernel or the Blender 3D Toolkit would've come this far if Linus Torwalds or Ton Roosendahl would be switching projects every odd month and caring about every fart on their facebook network?
No Sir. There is a lot of productivity advice out there and a bucket load of Lifehacks you can use to trick your life and yourself into getting things done, but the first move is to reduce the things you want to handle to that handfull that you really care about to see them through even if things get rough or you lose your job or switch careers. If you don't do that, no amount of tooling, portable computers and scheduling strategies will be able to get you on track because you yourself are the bottleneck.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I use a single very large password, which gets concatenated to the site's domain and passed to a SHA-1 algorithm.
This way, I never have to worry about syncing stuff, I can recreate all passwords from memory with a sha1 filter.
I keep a few original passwords for some specific sites (eg. bank), which I can keep in memory, even though it's weak.
Dilbert RSS feed
I so very much wish I had learned to do this. In general I try not to acquire things I want to keep, but even so, it's becoming a burden.
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
Totally. This is so much my experience. When I was younger I used to diligently catalog my video tapes, LPs, books etc. I had all sorts of card file systems for recording all sorts of, well, crap but at the time it seemed vitally important. Then when I got into computers, I started to keep multiple backups of everything, later on CDRs got duplicated, emails got archived etc. etc. Then suddenly I found myself married, with family and suddenly found 99% of that stuff mattered not a jot.
Best of all, apart from massively less stress and time spent keeping on top of it all, actually letting it go has been cathartic. Going through hundreds of VHS tapes I kept 'just in case this was the last copy anywhere' turned into 'can I be arsed to stick this on a DVDR? No'. All those HDs on the shelf and CD/DVD backups that I never look at from one year to the next have been heaved out.
I remember reading once an interview with someone who'd lost everything in a fire. They said it was a disaster, they thought they'd never cope with the loss and then suddenly they felt the weight of years of worrying about losing all their crap, lifting off their shoulders. From then on they lived life lean and much happier.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
This also applies to simple things. I used to keep everything in a massive, strung-out online todo list. Toodledoo was the last one, if anyone cares. But it quickly blossomed out to hundreds of entries, none of which were going to get done.
I do still keep a toodledo list for certain important things. But generally speaking, everything I intend to do in a day gets written down on a paper notebook in my pocket. One paper = one day. If something doesn't get done in a day, the following morning I'll sit down and decide what needs to get done that day. Sometimes things get brought across, but frequently items that seemed essential to get done just get dropped. My todo list is far more manageable now, overall more probably gets done. And while I forget certain things, at least I'm not kicking myself about not getting to them every time I scan down a list of 100 items to do right now.
Definitely forget some things. Distill information down to the important things, and lose the rest.
The ______ Agenda
I juggle multiple projects, grants, articles in progress, conference presentations, you name it. For the ones that have any kind of paper attached to them (receipts, notes, annotated printouts, whatever) I put all the paper in a single large ziploc bag. At the very front goes a single sheet with the name of the project and the last date I changed the contents.
Throw all the ziplocs in a box. When you need to work on project x, rummage through the box and grab that ziploc & it's all there.. If the project generates too much paper for a single ziploc, then it's probably big and complicated enough to need a file drawer, and you're unlikely to forget that it's in progress..
Once a month or so have a complete rummage through the box - stuff you've abandoned can be pulled out and tossed or archived in some way, and you'll be reminded about other things you have in progress that have been off your mind for a while..
I'd add Access or Open Office Base. Both have handy wizards that make it butt simple to make a database for anything you could possibly want, from names to ideas to photos to whatever. I've helped local churches use OO.o Base to set up databases for all kinds of lists and records, and once they see how it is sooo easy I always end up coming back a few months later and finding they have little databases for all kinds of stuff. so if all he is wanting is a way to keep track of stuff I'd say a simple database should fit the requirements nicely, and if he already has access or an Internet connection to download Open office it won't cost him a penny.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Stuff like pushing your kid on the swing or having a glass of wine with your wife after you've read the kids bedtime stories and tucked them in. So your OCD database of your comic book collection is out of date, and your DVDs aren't alphabetical. So what? If you choose to have a family you'll discover that stuff was just a waste of your life...
subjective opinion backed by...
Just ask your parents or your grandparents...
argumentum ad populum
There are other things to do with life than reproduce. I'm tired of the superiority complex so many people project after they've gone this route. This makes me wonder if what I'm actually hearing is delusion brought on by post-choice regrets. After all, it's a lot harder getting out of now unwanted familial-legal obligations than it is quitting a simple hobby. Talk about waste...
Ian M. Banks in The Algebraist describes a 'slow' species, the Dwellers, who live so long that their personal houses evolve into museums of antiquity. Some well kept sections housing historical records hard to find elsewhere. Other wings being decayed to the point of hazard, a serious problem when your house is floating in the air of a gas giant.
Like all fictional species, they may be more a comment on humanity and an important insight into us. How different would be we after enough time, enough diaries started and abandoned, and enough partial collections left unfinished?
Good thing we have trash cans. And archeologist's willing to dumpster dive those city dumps.
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
Ha, reminds me of a corollary...
"Borrow a million bucks, and the bank owns you; borrow a few billion bucks, and you own the bank."
Used in reference to US foreign policy with China, for better for for worse :P
I'm very similar, finances are the one area where I was forced to add some organizational help to preserve my credit score. By far the most helpful thing I've found in that area is Mint.com, I have it set up to start bugging me via email when the bills need to be paid soon.