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I've tried many different systems, and the one I settled on is a single simple doc. It's the only method I've used for over a year. You can do google doc or o

I've tried many different systems, and the one I settled on is a single simple doc. It's the only method I've used for over a year. You can do google doc or office doc, but the key for me was having one doc that I just keep prepending to. Each day i'll add the date yyyy-mm-dd (dow) in bold and then list my work for the day... I use hyperlinks to dedicated docs or online guides for more involved projects (quick ctrl-k), and add a little check mark when it's done. By adding days in the future, I am able to schedule work or set reminders, and with ctrl-f I can search the doc for anything I've done previously as it also acts as a journal. I often used to get lost in the minutia of catagorization, and having list sorting help me determine priority, but I've come to realize that I already know what needs to be done, and roughly in which order. ... my bottleneck was always focus. Excessive task structure can be a procrastination in itself. Going back to paper as op suggests seems like a step back. It's not perfect, but it works. I do still wish I could add some sort of hierarchy to line items and also be able to zoom out to see the bigger picture, but for now that just sits in another dedicated doc that I schedule myself to look at now and again. Hitting 18 months now on this system. Have never felt so organized.

tedmiston 6y ago
An outliner app like WorkFlowy (YC S10) or TaskPaper is nice for adding nesting and the ability to zoom in and out. You can also directly link to any node, at least in WorkFlowy. My approach is similar to yours except it's one hierarchical entry per day. https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner
- lukebyear 6y ago
  I’ve landed on the same approach, in WorkFlowy. I’ll tag lines #todo for tasks, or a project-specific hashtag, so it’s really easy to see everything I’ve written about a subject. Only two months in but it’s great and very low-friction. Using RocketBook to merge in handwritten notes I make in the mornings and evenings sometimes.
- dicytea 6y ago
  I'm sad there's still no good offline and native clone of Workflowy/Dynalist after all these years. I've tried many other outliner-like note-taking software, but I haven't found anything that is more comfortable to use than the outliner system in Workflowy/Dynalist. To paraphrase a quote I've heard online, "it fits my brain like a glove."
  - msamwald 6y ago
    Dynalist has an offline app (which syncs with the server when online). See https://dynalist.io/download https://dynalist.io/download . It's the same interface as on the web (so not 'native'), though.
  - jaden 6y ago
    ActionOutline was my go-to native outliner on Windows. https://www.actionoutline.com/ https://www.actionoutline.com/
  - codemac 6y ago
    Basically this is why folks use org-mode, but it won't satisfy you if you're used to syncing.
- submeta 6y ago
  +1 for TaskPaper. Markdown for notes and Taskpaper for tasks, projects and outlines. It is a format and a Mac app, that is extremely well made. Super fast keyboard navigation, customizable styles and scriptable in JavaScript. Love it.
mlboss 6y ago
I have been using a single text file for past 5 years. Ability to do vim regex search is a big plus. Lately I have been thinking of adding a search engine on top of mac's notes.sqlite db.
- lazyjeff 6y ago
  I've written a bit about combining a todo list with notetaking in a single text file: https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/ https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/ Last time I posted it on Hacker News, quite a few people told me they adopted this workflow.
DougWebb 6y ago
I've ended up in the same place, but I use a text file. After years of trying to use time tracking systems, TODO systems, and journaling systems, I could never get past their data-entry-inefficiency compared to just opening a text file in vim and typing. I do need a better way to view and report my data though, so what I've done is write a read-only reporting GUI that can parse my text file, give me daily/weekly/per-task/per-client reporting on my time tracking, per-day views of any journal entries, and a TODO list. It can even export the current week's entries in a format that pastes into my invoice spreadsheet template. This is all managed in a per-year text file, 2020.txt, that's easy to back up and could be version controlled if I needed to do that.
ufmace 6y ago
This is a lot like what I've been using for over 5 years now. Key points for me are: * Plain text only, no graphics, formatting, outlining, tagging, categories, etc. These are all distractions to actually getting your point down and don't really add any value, don't get sucked into them. * Ability to do simple text search and go to specific date. Big lifesaver for any problem that looks like "So exactly what did I do on this one specific day 3 months ago?" Paper is nice for avoiding distracting formatting details. But losing out on free text search is too much of a drag.
heimatau 6y ago
I appreciate this suggestion. It can act a journal, as you mentioned but...it's a linear overview of the things churning in your mind. And something great can come out of it but regardless, it helps you in more than one way. I appreciate the insights and methods you use. I sometimes over-complicate solutions when all that's needed is a catch-all drawer.
rorykoehler 6y ago
I do this to create a papertrail of thought and action for work but it's a vey narrow use case. What about notes for creative thought, mind mapping etc?

tedmiston 6y ago

An outliner app like WorkFlowy (YC S10) or TaskPaper is nice for adding nesting and the ability to zoom in and out. You can also directly link to any node, at least in WorkFlowy. My approach is similar to yours except it's one hierarchical entry per day. https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner

lukebyear 6y ago
I’ve landed on the same approach, in WorkFlowy. I’ll tag lines #todo for tasks, or a project-specific hashtag, so it’s really easy to see everything I’ve written about a subject. Only two months in but it’s great and very low-friction. Using RocketBook to merge in handwritten notes I make in the mornings and evenings sometimes.
dicytea 6y ago
I'm sad there's still no good offline and native clone of Workflowy/Dynalist after all these years. I've tried many other outliner-like note-taking software, but I haven't found anything that is more comfortable to use than the outliner system in Workflowy/Dynalist. To paraphrase a quote I've heard online, "it fits my brain like a glove."
- msamwald 6y ago
  Dynalist has an offline app (which syncs with the server when online). See https://dynalist.io/download https://dynalist.io/download . It's the same interface as on the web (so not 'native'), though.
- jaden 6y ago
  ActionOutline was my go-to native outliner on Windows. https://www.actionoutline.com/ https://www.actionoutline.com/
- codemac 6y ago
  Basically this is why folks use org-mode, but it won't satisfy you if you're used to syncing.
submeta 6y ago
+1 for TaskPaper. Markdown for notes and Taskpaper for tasks, projects and outlines. It is a format and a Mac app, that is extremely well made. Super fast keyboard navigation, customizable styles and scriptable in JavaScript. Love it.

mlboss 6y ago

I have been using a single text file for past 5 years. Ability to do vim regex search is a big plus. Lately I have been thinking of adding a search engine on top of mac's notes.sqlite db.

lazyjeff 6y ago
I've written a bit about combining a todo list with notetaking in a single text file: https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/ https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/ Last time I posted it on Hacker News, quite a few people told me they adopted this workflow.

DougWebb 6y ago

I've ended up in the same place, but I use a text file. After years of trying to use time tracking systems, TODO systems, and journaling systems, I could never get past their data-entry-inefficiency compared to just opening a text file in vim and typing. I do need a better way to view and report my data though, so what I've done is write a read-only reporting GUI that can parse my text file, give me daily/weekly/per-task/per-client reporting on my time tracking, per-day views of any journal entries, and a TODO list. It can even export the current week's entries in a format that pastes into my invoice spreadsheet template. This is all managed in a per-year text file, 2020.txt, that's easy to back up and could be version controlled if I needed to do that.

ufmace 6y ago

This is a lot like what I've been using for over 5 years now. Key points for me are: * Plain text only, no graphics, formatting, outlining, tagging, categories, etc. These are all distractions to actually getting your point down and don't really add any value, don't get sucked into them. * Ability to do simple text search and go to specific date. Big lifesaver for any problem that looks like "So exactly what did I do on this one specific day 3 months ago?" Paper is nice for avoiding distracting formatting details. But losing out on free text search is too much of a drag.

heimatau 6y ago

I appreciate this suggestion. It can act a journal, as you mentioned but...it's a linear overview of the things churning in your mind. And something great can come out of it but regardless, it helps you in more than one way. I appreciate the insights and methods you use. I sometimes over-complicate solutions when all that's needed is a catch-all drawer.

rorykoehler 6y ago

I do this to create a papertrail of thought and action for work but it's a vey narrow use case. What about notes for creative thought, mind mapping etc?