8 ms·

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Tr

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell after about 2,000 notes and a few years of work. I couldn't find things when I needed them, it didn't support a non-linear mode of work. It became my personal black hole that swallowed up information but never gave it back. With org-mode I have created my very own filing and research system. After years of using it and thousands of articles I find things. Quickly. Now, with org-roam, I create hubs of knowledge and ideas that I can come back to at a later point without worrying about linearity or chronology. No longer do I need to know where things are. I know what ideas are in there. If I don't like a certain workflow, I can grow, develop or change my filing and note-taking system as I see fit. In my opinion, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier after years of sunk costs.

purerandomness 6y ago
Also, people forget that their favourite SaaS-du-jour probably won't be around after their "Incredible Journey" ends and there won't be a migration path, or it's going to cost too many hours to be worth it. Emacs will be here for us in the next decades, even well after our career ends, and then some.
- nextos 6y ago
  Besides, Org is not complicated. It has lots of features, but at its core it's just a plain text outliner with hyperlinks, keywords and timestamps. Org is like Common Lisp in many ways. It offers you lots of paradigms to build your own workflows, but you don't need to use or understand them initially. An it might suffer from the same PR problem Emacs has. Manuals, tutorials and guides throw all features at once without focussing on core concepts first. And it's overwhelming for newcomers.
  - kohtatsu 6y ago
    Would really appreciate links to guides that don't suffer from this.
    - nextos 6y ago
      Sadly, I am not aware of any. Perhaps some articles and the book in https://www.masteringemacs.org/ https://www.masteringemacs.org/. At some point, I would like to write an introduction to Emacs, Org, Notmuch and friends. Their docs are great if you have been using Emacs for a long time. But if you are a newcomer, the learning curve is really steep. And it shouldn't be like that. At their core all these are conceptually simple, easy to understand, and to hack. Emacs and friends are IMHO really worth investing time into due to the Lindy effect. They will be around when most of the current software is gone. Besides, a text-mode Lisp VM (which is what Emacs is), makes your life as a developer much more enjoyable.
- inakarmacoma 6y ago
  I've been using DynaList, so I guess I am vulnerable to this risk. But for some reason I could not figure out a way to make org mode work across all platforms in anyway close to as seamlessly. I was able to sometimes get cross-linking across but it was still pretty clunky. if I wanted to use org mode and I wanted to send random articles and other things to it via share function or send function and a mobile phone or iPad, edited on desktop in emacs, and then search find edit etc from any mobile device, is this really a possibility?
- matwood 6y ago
  I've tried org-mode a few times, but I just couldn't get over emacs and the mobile app situation. For now I've settled on Apple Notes which works well with the iPad and pencil across all of my devices. I also use Drafts for longer form writing. The downside is that I'm trapped in Apple's ecosystem, but I'm already deeply there so I might as well embrace it.
  - ssivark 6y ago
    There are now several solutions for org-mode on mobile. Organice, beorg, org-web, Orgzly etc.
    - golem14 6y ago
      They are all very nice. I really only need to capture new things on mobile for the most part, so my needs are minimal. What holds me back, however, is not supporting Google Drive for synchronization, as I use that anyway. As is, I would have to use another service like dropbox to sync mobile edits back. Wait - I see that org-web says it does sync with Google drive, so I will try that out. Seems like I can use it by self hosting and not requiring giving google credentials out to some scary startupm (or large corporate entity I don't want to trust either). Thanks for the tip!
      - keegancsmith 6y ago
        Capturing is very simple since it is just plain text. For example here is a guide which uses siri on iOS to capture voice notes to your org-mode inbox: https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/30/voice-capture-org-mode-notes-and-more-using-siri-shortcuts-on-ios/ https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/30/voice-capture-org-m... There is also a guide for android https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/28/voice-capture-org-mode-tasks-on-android/ https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/28/voice-capture-org-m...
      - ssivark 6y ago
        Organice does support Google Drive, Dropbox and WebDAV. (Organice is a fork of org-web) More fundamentally, if you (anyone reading) can think of any easily usable way to sync files between devices, I think it might not be too hard to get Organice/etc. to support that as yet another backend.
- groby_b 6y ago
  And if needed, we'll migrate to it. Meanwhile, any SaaS-du-jour that actually has data export does the job right now. I'm more interested in moving forward than in noodling on a system that, once it will be completed, will maybe help me make progress on my actual goals. They also don't give me RSI, which is a welcome change from emacs.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Just remember that, just like you don't actually have a backup until you successfully restore a system from it, the SaaS-du-jour doesn't actually have data export until you use it and import it somewhere, and verify all the data you care about survived the transition.
  - kleiba 6y ago
    There's nothing wrong with using alternative solutions, but your critique of Emacs is mostly FUD and a repetition of cliches. Your two points are: 1. Org-mode (or Emacs?) is not completed, by which you imply it is in some kind of premature state that it's not ready to use. like some kind of "version 0.2 beta, use at your own risk". Nothing is further from the truth. Org-mode is currently on stable release 9.3.6. It has been tried and tested for many, many years and is widely used in its niche. The fact that it is under active development is not a shortcoming, it's a plus. Unless you're arguing by analogy that you cannot use such software as "Chrome" or "TensorFlow" because they have not yet been completed. 2. RSI - I've heard this argument multiple times, and I believe that it actually might affect some people. I, for one, have been using Emacs for well over 20 years and have never had any problems along those lines. But for those who do experience issues, there are multiple solutions around that you might want to give a try. They range from remapping of some central keys to completely different ways of inputting commands, e.g., inspired by vim. Don't get me wrong, you can user whatever you want. But if these two points are the only reason you shy away from giving org-mode a try, do not worry and don't let them stand in your way.
    - groby_b 6y ago
      I mostly refer to the fact that org-mode isn't a complete system - it lacks many integrations. It is, in every article I read, an excuse to faff about with configuring things. In fact that's pretty much the start of every org mode article - "here's how to change your config file" (There's nothing wrong with that - I totally enjoy it for some things. I just need a workflow now, not when I've put all the pieces together) And the "remapping central keys"/"completely different ways of inputting commands" is exactly the faffing about I refer to as well. I know I can customize it to my heart's content. I've done that. I've written way too much elisp. I don't want to any more. I want something that works for me, as out-of-the-box as possible. Many SaaS offerings do. It's not to say you shouldn't use org mode if it works for you. But I'm not "going to give it a try" if I have a solution that works right now. Nope. Thanks. I have things I'd rather do.
jl6 6y ago
> low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage I don’t happen to agree with this in the specific case of org-mode, but it’s a useful generic insight.
jasode 6y ago
>, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier Ultimately, it depends on the type of user but the "barrier" may be that it's plain text. So Org Mode's data format as a desirable selling point is also its ceiling of functionality. Yes, I store 90% of my notes in plain text. But I also store some programming notes in MS Excel because I need a datagrid as UI with dynamic calculations. I store some project notes in MS Word because I need to embed graphics along with text. I suppose I could use Org Mode as a "single source of truth" by linking to .xlsx and .docx files but I reorganize my folder structures too often to make such file links stable. I made a previous comment why Emacs Org Mode along with everything else I tried in the last few decades to organize life is a very hard problem of "boiling the ocean": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112843
- Nullabillity 6y ago
  Org-mode documents can include graphics[0] and (formula-driven) spreadsheets[1]. [0]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images [1]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet
  - jasode 6y ago
    Yes but I use MS Excel features like pivot tables and MS Word graphics features like drawing arrows as overlays on top of screenshots to annotate them. The other limitation of out-of-the-box Org Mode "plain text" architecture is that it limits collaboration of letting other users edit my file because fine-grain locking is not as straightforward as with a db file like SQLite. My "master todo list" is easier to manage if I can let my significant other can enter items for me instead of me doing all the manual data entry myself. I do understand that since Emacs has Lisp, it can ultimately do anything if you really want to customize/extend/research it.
    - taeric 6y ago
      These are actually not that hard to do in org-mode, if you are willing to use babel and push the pivot out to something like pandas. :D That said, no, I don't actually think it is a replacement for spreadsheets. Especially not if you are already fluent in them.
m463 6y ago
This sort of resonates with me. I use emacs extensively, but I started using omnifocus years ago and that is what I still use. The features for me are: just about perfect sync across devices. self-hosted data. enough sorting and prioritizing features. But I will say around ios 7 timeframe they drank the apple Koolaid and changed just about everything in the app - and most were meaningless look-and-feel changes. Just about everything else in the app was negatively impacted. to think of putting my data - the data I run my life with - into something that will only ever improve over time is very compelling.
- h91wka 6y ago
  As a full time linux user I can't use OmniFocus anymore. But I tried it in the past, and to be honest, mastering it required no less time than I put into my unsophisticated org-mode setup.
slightwinder 6y ago
> In my opinion, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier after years of sunk costs. Nah, it moves the barrier, but it's still there. There always are barriers. In case of org-mode it's the limitations of emacs and time you need to invest into forging them into whatever system you seek, which often is not even possible with emacs.
- monsieurbanana 6y ago
  Sometimes getting emacs to do what you want can take a ridiculous amount of time. However, if there's something you really cannot do in emacs, my advice would be to try praying, because at that point nothing else can help you.
  - slightwinder 6y ago
    Or just start a rich environment, like a browser, or excel. Interface-wise there are many things that emacs can't do. Feature-wise there is even more missing because of lacking manpower. But that's okay. Every job it's right tool.
    - monsieurbanana 6y ago
      https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm Chrome in emacs? No problem. Excel on linux on emacs? No problem, just run Excel on Windows on VirtualBox on emacs. (in case you missed it from my first comment, I'm being facetious)
      - slightwinder 6y ago
        That's not "in emacs". Still seperate process and environment and limited to no integration into emacs. If you do stuff like this, at least use https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framework https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framewor... for some better level of integration. Though, still seperate and limited.
crimsonalucard1 6y ago
That's great but is there anything that has the best of all worlds? Low barrier to entry and maintenance of a fast workflow after years of notes?
- michael-ax 6y ago
  i have >5yr years of daily/weekly org'd notes, several dozen files i refile into (made easy by using symbols as first letter in categories and a catg naming convention that grew up along with the setup) and some days i totally forget that i'm 'in a program', because its easy. sure i get lost cause i forget i wrote some code here or there, but it just works.
CJefferson 6y ago
Here were my "sunk costs" of org-mode. 1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet 2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me. 3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows. 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mode (for example tables) I'm sure you love org-mode, and that's great, but plenty of people over the years have tried and failed to love emacs, and lost a whole lot of time in the process.
- na85 6y ago
  There are packages you can install to make the copy/cut/paste keys and a few others more Windows-like.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    M-x cua-mode should work out of the box
    - CJefferson 6y ago
      cua conflicts with org, so you can't use them both together (I've been told, and googling suggests this is true)
      - sparkie 6y ago
        There are a few key binding collisions, but otherwise they can be used together.
        im3w1l 6y ago
        So now you are telling a noob who just wants to get some task done to start resolving key binding collisions.
        6y ago
kirubakaran 6y ago
You hit the nail on the head. A well designed system has coherent building blocks. When you scale that up, you don't end up with a rat's nest. Funny you should mention Evernote. I'm building https://histre.com/ https://histre.com/ as the said coherent alternative to it (among other reasons), as Evernote truly turns into a hoarder house after a while. I'm a big org-mode user as well, and that solves most of the "write stuff down for later" needs for me.
kazinator 6y ago
Why would you commit important work to some online service? When I visit evernote.com, I see the obvious fails: "sign up", "log in". You gotta own the data, so that no matter how bad the program turns out to be, you have some a nice local file sitting on your hard drive from which you can ferret it all out somehow.
mercer 6y ago
I'm a Vim guy but with Spacemacs it was easy to get into Emacs. The spacebar action to see following actions (whatever it's called) really helped me figure out what the keyboard shortcuts were for various commands, or it just told me the exact name of said command. There isn't a single piece of software that has replaced as many other tools, or simplified or otherwise benefited me as much as Emac+OrgMode. OrgMode is what I now use for: - journalling - time-tracking - project management - various almost-literate-programming tasks - calendaring, to a very extensive degree I could probably spend a good few paragraphs explaining how making a note in my 'knowledge base' file can be given a due date so it shows up in my calendar, etc., but I'll just say that Emacs+OrgMode has effectively replaced: - iCal - Twitter - DayOne (personal journalling) - Toggl - Journler - OmniFocus - Reminder/whatever-app-is-on-my-android-phone - and probably a few more

purerandomness 6y ago

Also, people forget that their favourite SaaS-du-jour probably won't be around after their "Incredible Journey" ends and there won't be a migration path, or it's going to cost too many hours to be worth it. Emacs will be here for us in the next decades, even well after our career ends, and then some.

nextos 6y ago
Besides, Org is not complicated. It has lots of features, but at its core it's just a plain text outliner with hyperlinks, keywords and timestamps. Org is like Common Lisp in many ways. It offers you lots of paradigms to build your own workflows, but you don't need to use or understand them initially. An it might suffer from the same PR problem Emacs has. Manuals, tutorials and guides throw all features at once without focussing on core concepts first. And it's overwhelming for newcomers.
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  Would really appreciate links to guides that don't suffer from this.
  - nextos 6y ago
    Sadly, I am not aware of any. Perhaps some articles and the book in https://www.masteringemacs.org/ https://www.masteringemacs.org/. At some point, I would like to write an introduction to Emacs, Org, Notmuch and friends. Their docs are great if you have been using Emacs for a long time. But if you are a newcomer, the learning curve is really steep. And it shouldn't be like that. At their core all these are conceptually simple, easy to understand, and to hack. Emacs and friends are IMHO really worth investing time into due to the Lindy effect. They will be around when most of the current software is gone. Besides, a text-mode Lisp VM (which is what Emacs is), makes your life as a developer much more enjoyable.
inakarmacoma 6y ago
I've been using DynaList, so I guess I am vulnerable to this risk. But for some reason I could not figure out a way to make org mode work across all platforms in anyway close to as seamlessly. I was able to sometimes get cross-linking across but it was still pretty clunky. if I wanted to use org mode and I wanted to send random articles and other things to it via share function or send function and a mobile phone or iPad, edited on desktop in emacs, and then search find edit etc from any mobile device, is this really a possibility?
matwood 6y ago
I've tried org-mode a few times, but I just couldn't get over emacs and the mobile app situation. For now I've settled on Apple Notes which works well with the iPad and pencil across all of my devices. I also use Drafts for longer form writing. The downside is that I'm trapped in Apple's ecosystem, but I'm already deeply there so I might as well embrace it.
- ssivark 6y ago
  There are now several solutions for org-mode on mobile. Organice, beorg, org-web, Orgzly etc.
  - golem14 6y ago
    They are all very nice. I really only need to capture new things on mobile for the most part, so my needs are minimal. What holds me back, however, is not supporting Google Drive for synchronization, as I use that anyway. As is, I would have to use another service like dropbox to sync mobile edits back. Wait - I see that org-web says it does sync with Google drive, so I will try that out. Seems like I can use it by self hosting and not requiring giving google credentials out to some scary startupm (or large corporate entity I don't want to trust either). Thanks for the tip!
    - keegancsmith 6y ago
      Capturing is very simple since it is just plain text. For example here is a guide which uses siri on iOS to capture voice notes to your org-mode inbox: https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/30/voice-capture-org-mode-notes-and-more-using-siri-shortcuts-on-ios/ https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/30/voice-capture-org-m... There is also a guide for android https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/28/voice-capture-org-mode-tasks-on-android/ https://orgmode-exocortex.com/2020/04/28/voice-capture-org-m...
    - ssivark 6y ago
      Organice does support Google Drive, Dropbox and WebDAV. (Organice is a fork of org-web) More fundamentally, if you (anyone reading) can think of any easily usable way to sync files between devices, I think it might not be too hard to get Organice/etc. to support that as yet another backend.
groby_b 6y ago
And if needed, we'll migrate to it. Meanwhile, any SaaS-du-jour that actually has data export does the job right now. I'm more interested in moving forward than in noodling on a system that, once it will be completed, will maybe help me make progress on my actual goals. They also don't give me RSI, which is a welcome change from emacs.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Just remember that, just like you don't actually have a backup until you successfully restore a system from it, the SaaS-du-jour doesn't actually have data export until you use it and import it somewhere, and verify all the data you care about survived the transition.
- kleiba 6y ago
  There's nothing wrong with using alternative solutions, but your critique of Emacs is mostly FUD and a repetition of cliches. Your two points are: 1. Org-mode (or Emacs?) is not completed, by which you imply it is in some kind of premature state that it's not ready to use. like some kind of "version 0.2 beta, use at your own risk". Nothing is further from the truth. Org-mode is currently on stable release 9.3.6. It has been tried and tested for many, many years and is widely used in its niche. The fact that it is under active development is not a shortcoming, it's a plus. Unless you're arguing by analogy that you cannot use such software as "Chrome" or "TensorFlow" because they have not yet been completed. 2. RSI - I've heard this argument multiple times, and I believe that it actually might affect some people. I, for one, have been using Emacs for well over 20 years and have never had any problems along those lines. But for those who do experience issues, there are multiple solutions around that you might want to give a try. They range from remapping of some central keys to completely different ways of inputting commands, e.g., inspired by vim. Don't get me wrong, you can user whatever you want. But if these two points are the only reason you shy away from giving org-mode a try, do not worry and don't let them stand in your way.
  - groby_b 6y ago
    I mostly refer to the fact that org-mode isn't a complete system - it lacks many integrations. It is, in every article I read, an excuse to faff about with configuring things. In fact that's pretty much the start of every org mode article - "here's how to change your config file" (There's nothing wrong with that - I totally enjoy it for some things. I just need a workflow now, not when I've put all the pieces together) And the "remapping central keys"/"completely different ways of inputting commands" is exactly the faffing about I refer to as well. I know I can customize it to my heart's content. I've done that. I've written way too much elisp. I don't want to any more. I want something that works for me, as out-of-the-box as possible. Many SaaS offerings do. It's not to say you shouldn't use org mode if it works for you. But I'm not "going to give it a try" if I have a solution that works right now. Nope. Thanks. I have things I'd rather do.

jl6 6y ago

> low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage I don’t happen to agree with this in the specific case of org-mode, but it’s a useful generic insight.

jasode 6y ago

>, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier Ultimately, it depends on the type of user but the "barrier" may be that it's plain text. So Org Mode's data format as a desirable selling point is also its ceiling of functionality. Yes, I store 90% of my notes in plain text. But I also store some programming notes in MS Excel because I need a datagrid as UI with dynamic calculations. I store some project notes in MS Word because I need to embed graphics along with text. I suppose I could use Org Mode as a "single source of truth" by linking to .xlsx and .docx files but I reorganize my folder structures too often to make such file links stable. I made a previous comment why Emacs Org Mode along with everything else I tried in the last few decades to organize life is a very hard problem of "boiling the ocean": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112843

Nullabillity 6y ago
Org-mode documents can include graphics[0] and (formula-driven) spreadsheets[1]. [0]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images https://orgmode.org/org.html#Images [1]: https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet https://orgmode.org/org.html#The-Spreadsheet
- jasode 6y ago
  Yes but I use MS Excel features like pivot tables and MS Word graphics features like drawing arrows as overlays on top of screenshots to annotate them. The other limitation of out-of-the-box Org Mode "plain text" architecture is that it limits collaboration of letting other users edit my file because fine-grain locking is not as straightforward as with a db file like SQLite. My "master todo list" is easier to manage if I can let my significant other can enter items for me instead of me doing all the manual data entry myself. I do understand that since Emacs has Lisp, it can ultimately do anything if you really want to customize/extend/research it.
  - taeric 6y ago
    These are actually not that hard to do in org-mode, if you are willing to use babel and push the pivot out to something like pandas. :D That said, no, I don't actually think it is a replacement for spreadsheets. Especially not if you are already fluent in them.

m463 6y ago

This sort of resonates with me. I use emacs extensively, but I started using omnifocus years ago and that is what I still use. The features for me are: just about perfect sync across devices. self-hosted data. enough sorting and prioritizing features. But I will say around ios 7 timeframe they drank the apple Koolaid and changed just about everything in the app - and most were meaningless look-and-feel changes. Just about everything else in the app was negatively impacted. to think of putting my data - the data I run my life with - into something that will only ever improve over time is very compelling.

h91wka 6y ago
As a full time linux user I can't use OmniFocus anymore. But I tried it in the past, and to be honest, mastering it required no less time than I put into my unsophisticated org-mode setup.

slightwinder 6y ago

> In my opinion, org-mode eliminates the risk of hitting any sort of barrier after years of sunk costs. Nah, it moves the barrier, but it's still there. There always are barriers. In case of org-mode it's the limitations of emacs and time you need to invest into forging them into whatever system you seek, which often is not even possible with emacs.

monsieurbanana 6y ago
Sometimes getting emacs to do what you want can take a ridiculous amount of time. However, if there's something you really cannot do in emacs, my advice would be to try praying, because at that point nothing else can help you.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  Or just start a rich environment, like a browser, or excel. Interface-wise there are many things that emacs can't do. Feature-wise there is even more missing because of lacking manpower. But that's okay. Every job it's right tool.
  - monsieurbanana 6y ago
    https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm Chrome in emacs? No problem. Excel on linux on emacs? No problem, just run Excel on Windows on VirtualBox on emacs. (in case you missed it from my first comment, I'm being facetious)
    - slightwinder 6y ago
      That's not "in emacs". Still seperate process and environment and limited to no integration into emacs. If you do stuff like this, at least use https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framework https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framewor... for some better level of integration. Though, still seperate and limited.

crimsonalucard1 6y ago

That's great but is there anything that has the best of all worlds? Low barrier to entry and maintenance of a fast workflow after years of notes?

michael-ax 6y ago
i have >5yr years of daily/weekly org'd notes, several dozen files i refile into (made easy by using symbols as first letter in categories and a catg naming convention that grew up along with the setup) and some days i totally forget that i'm 'in a program', because its easy. sure i get lost cause i forget i wrote some code here or there, but it just works.

CJefferson 6y ago

Here were my "sunk costs" of org-mode. 1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet 2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me. 3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows. 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mode (for example tables) I'm sure you love org-mode, and that's great, but plenty of people over the years have tried and failed to love emacs, and lost a whole lot of time in the process.

na85 6y ago
There are packages you can install to make the copy/cut/paste keys and a few others more Windows-like.
- sparkie 6y ago
  M-x cua-mode should work out of the box
  - CJefferson 6y ago
    cua conflicts with org, so you can't use them both together (I've been told, and googling suggests this is true)
    - sparkie 6y ago
      There are a few key binding collisions, but otherwise they can be used together.
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        So now you are telling a noob who just wants to get some task done to start resolving key binding collisions.
        6y ago

kirubakaran 6y ago

You hit the nail on the head. A well designed system has coherent building blocks. When you scale that up, you don't end up with a rat's nest. Funny you should mention Evernote. I'm building https://histre.com/ https://histre.com/ as the said coherent alternative to it (among other reasons), as Evernote truly turns into a hoarder house after a while. I'm a big org-mode user as well, and that solves most of the "write stuff down for later" needs for me.

kazinator 6y ago

Why would you commit important work to some online service? When I visit evernote.com, I see the obvious fails: "sign up", "log in". You gotta own the data, so that no matter how bad the program turns out to be, you have some a nice local file sitting on your hard drive from which you can ferret it all out somehow.

mercer 6y ago

I'm a Vim guy but with Spacemacs it was easy to get into Emacs. The spacebar action to see following actions (whatever it's called) really helped me figure out what the keyboard shortcuts were for various commands, or it just told me the exact name of said command. There isn't a single piece of software that has replaced as many other tools, or simplified or otherwise benefited me as much as Emac+OrgMode. OrgMode is what I now use for: - journalling - time-tracking - project management - various almost-literate-programming tasks - calendaring, to a very extensive degree I could probably spend a good few paragraphs explaining how making a note in my 'knowledge base' file can be given a due date so it shows up in my calendar, etc., but I'll just say that Emacs+OrgMode has effectively replaced: - iCal - Twitter - DayOne (personal journalling) - Toggl - Journler - OmniFocus - Reminder/whatever-app-is-on-my-android-phone - and probably a few more