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Ask Slashdot: Professional Journaling/Notes Software?

Posted by timothy on from the unexamined-life-not-worth-living dept.

netdicted writes "At the very outset of my career the importance of keeping a daily journal of activities and notes was clearly evident. Over the years I've always had a college ruled composition notebook nearby to jot down important ideas, instructions, tasks, etc. Putting away the rock and chisel was not optional when the volumes grew beyond my mental capacity to successfully index the contents. Over the years I've tried countless apps to keep a digital journal and failed miserably.

In my mind the ideal app or solution is a single file or cloud app where I can organize personal notes on projects, configurations, insights, ideas, etc., as well as noting major activities or occurrences of the day. My original journals saved me on a number of occasions. Unfortunately my tenacity for keeping one has suffered from a fruitless search for a suitable solution. Currently I'm experimenting with Evernote and Tiddlywiki. They approach the problem from two different angles. What do you use?"

4 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. paper...pencil by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been working on a research project in Chemical Engineering for the past 5 years as a consultant. I struggled, like you, to find a technical solution for a professional journal. I had to settle for fifty cent spiral bound notebook and pencil (I found a neat plastic case to keep them in). No other solution could provide me a way to easily keep a written ledger of text and numbers, draw diagrams, schematics, and allow me to easily edit mistakes. When the notebooks were full, they went into a three-ring binder. Searching through the pages of the binders is fairly easy, especially since *I'm* the one that wrote the notes.

    Don't over-think the problem.

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
  2. notepad by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously. Just put .LOG on the first line of the file and every time you open it Notepad puts the date and time.

    --
    Mostly random stuff.
  3. Org mode by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://orgmode.org/

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  4. Text file by Strange+Attractor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are right.

    I use simple text files. I like them more than paper notebooks because:
    1. I can edit them from anywhere that I can use ssh
    2. They are easy to search
    3. They are easy to back up

    The comments (including the parent) that suggest simple text files and editors have all been modded down to 0. I don't understand why.