• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
  • Showing only topics with the tag "personal information management". Back to normal view
    1. Looking for a good note-taking app

      Looking for recommendations for a multiplatform note taking app. Needs to support Windows and Android. Some things I'm looking for: Markdown support offline/local support (should be stored in an...

      Looking for recommendations for a multiplatform note taking app. Needs to support Windows and Android. Some things I'm looking for:

      • Markdown support
      • offline/local support (should be stored in an easily accessible and movable format e.g. markdown)
      • is free or only a one time fee
      • Syncing (either a one time fee via app dev or built in support for GDrive or OneDrive)
      • Mind mapping functionality (including linking between notes)
      • flexibility to be both a knowledge base and a place to keep todo lists and general small notes

      Obsidian hits most of these features but without paying $8/mo, syncing is a huge pain in the ass. I got it to sync between machines if I store my vaults in Google Drive, but I'd prefer to have them locally then synced. I don't mind paying for software, but I'm trying to avoid another monthly fee on top of everything else I'm paying for. I'm open to staying with Obsidian if I can solve the syncing issues, too.

      34 votes
    2. Researchers, how do you take notes on the papers which you read?

      I've been struggling with finding a good workflow for taking notes on the journal articles which I read. I collate articles using Zotero, yet its in-built notetaking features (and comment scraping...

      I've been struggling with finding a good workflow for taking notes on the journal articles which I read. I collate articles using Zotero, yet its in-built notetaking features (and comment scraping from PDFs) is quite poor. So, my alternative so far has been to write up notes by hand, but this is pretty cumbersome and makes it take some time to refer to my notes. My approach is clearly not effective!

      How do you take notes on the papers which you read? Do you prefer to use written notes, or do you type your notes? In any case, what is your preferred means of storing and categorising your notes? And are there particular software which you use, if you opt for typed notes? (At present, I use an A5 notebook. Yet, this is not alphabetised or organised by topic, which compounds my struggles.)

      25 votes
    3. How do you build lasting habits?

      I have tried installing apps, logging my days, writing on a piece of paper etc. Everything looks perfect while planning. I over optimize even before I have had experience doing/forming a habit and...

      I have tried installing apps, logging my days, writing on a piece of paper etc. Everything looks perfect while planning. I over optimize even before I have had experience doing/forming a habit and then lose all focus soon enough. Planning and execution in the short term goes almost flawlessly, but I always fail to be consistent over longer terms which is when the "effects"/"benefits" of the habit would be reaped.

      I would love how do you mindfully and purposefully spend time building habits? How to get on track when you eventually slip away due to any number of circumstances?

      39 votes
    4. What is everyone using for managing their contacts?

      Hi everyone, I'm struggling with contact management and was wondering if anyone could recommend some good solutions. My Google Contacts and iOS contact management has become unmanageable and I...

      Hi everyone, I'm struggling with contact management and was wondering if anyone could recommend some good solutions. My Google Contacts and iOS contact management has become unmanageable and I personally find them very awkward to use.

      15 votes
    5. What Obsidian plug-ins do you use?

      It seems that Obsidian is a very popular note-taking software within the community here, so I would like to know what plugins you use for your daily workflow in Obsidian. I will start: Advanced...

      It seems that Obsidian is a very popular note-taking software within the community here, so I would like to know what plugins you use for your daily workflow in Obsidian. I will start:

      • Advanced Tables: Very useful for adding and managing markdown tables using simple intuitive keyboard strokes.

      • Callout Manager: I tend to abuse the callout function (in my academic vault, I organize any kind of information inside a callout with the source of the info as the title), so it is good to have control of the colors for different kinds of callouts.

      • Minimal Theme Settings: Nothing much to talk about. Just some eye candy to make my notes easier on the eyes. Plus, the focus mode is very good for study sessions.

      • Obsidian Matrix: Allows me to organize some mathematical LaTeX code properly.

      • Reading Time: Useful to grasp the length of a longer note at a quick glance.

      • Recent Files: Helps me set myself around my files.

      • Style Settings: Complement of "Minimal Theme Settings" to achieve maximum eye candy.

      • List Callouts: I use it only in my personal projects vault. It helps me give particular emphasis to specific topics within my lists.

      • Table of Contents: Useful for longer, heavily-structured notes.

      Aside from that, I also have four CSS snippets:

      1. Align: Aligns my linked figures to the center of the page.
      2. Callout: Specifies the size of callouts (useful, as I mainly structure my notes inside callouts).
      3. Hide: Hides my "resources" folder from the Obsidian explorer (this folder contains files such as figures and PDFs that I link into my notes).
      4. Justify: Justifies all the text in read-mode.
      18 votes
    6. Email, calendar, todo, chat ... How are you keeping it all straight?

      While maybe only hitting zero four or five times in the last ten years, I've subscribed to the "inbox zero" / getting things done (GTD) philosophy and have used my email as a to-do list. The...

      While maybe only hitting zero four or five times in the last ten years, I've subscribed to the "inbox zero" / getting things done (GTD) philosophy and have used my email as a to-do list. The people that I lead know to send me emails if they or I are meant to perform work born from the conversation that we've shared. Its been great in not missing anything -- its been horrible from a prioritization standpoint. A third to half of my email are bodiless emails to myself where the subject line would look like a to-do list entry to most others.

      I'm curious how you approach your day and keep yourself organized if you're getting and giving work. Do you have a master to-do list that you work off of? Are you living in email all day? How do you keep track of prioritization and ensure that nothing slips between the cracks.

      40 votes
    7. Do you track your time?

      Basically the title. Do you now, or have you ever tracked your time to try to measure where it all goes? I've been feeling a little unproductive lately, and have heard anecdotally that keeping a...

      Basically the title. Do you now, or have you ever tracked your time to try to measure where it all goes? I've been feeling a little unproductive lately, and have heard anecdotally that keeping a log of time spent can be useful for realigning your priorities. I'm checking out a bunch of different apps and services, but also just curious to know if anybody has had any joy with this sort of thing?

      If you currently track your time, what do you use; are there things that you don't bother tracking; and do you feel like it's a useful tool?

      If you have in the past but don't anymore, same questions, but also why did you stop?

      13 votes
    8. How do you manage your digital notes?

      I am actually an Org Mode user, but I want something with great mobile support (Android) as well as desktop/web. None of the Org apps is good enough for me, and that may never happens. I don't...

      I am actually an Org Mode user, but I want something with great mobile support (Android) as well as desktop/web. None of the Org apps is good enough for me, and that may never happens. I don't even use my computer as much these days. I've been looking into Dynalist but the free version is bit too limited, the paid version is a bit much for me. Evernote is kinda the same. I could try Joplin+Dropbox? Obsidian? IDK. Any suggestions?

      22 votes
    9. So, yesterday, I turned my ToDo list into a Product Backlog and started my first personal improvement Sprint

      Where to post this feels tricky. The terms in my post title -- "Product Backlog" and "Sprint" are very IT-specific terms from a popular business management philosophy (Agile) and methodology...

      Where to post this feels tricky. The terms in my post title -- "Product Backlog" and "Sprint" are very IT-specific terms from a popular business management philosophy (Agile) and methodology (Scrum) for creating software.

      However, I am intentionally trying to adopt and adapt these concepts to my own life goals, personal improvement efforts and general day-to-day "get shit done" task lists.

      Has anyone else done this? It only just now occurred to me to search the 'Net to see how unusual this idea is, and of course, I'm seeing plenty of evidence that I'm not the first person to think of it.

      For the non-IT folk, here's the nutshell version. Large, long-term software development projects get broken down into bite-sized tasks, those pieces get prioritized and best-guesstimated as to each one's difficulty, and then short-term "Sprints" (each generally 1 week to 1 month long) are devoted to completing a selected subset of those tasks.

      As an on-going process, the overall project goals and tasklist (the "Product Backlog") get reviewed, re-evaluated and re-prioritized, and past efforts are regularly evaluated for effectiveness, and the lessons learned get incorporated into future planning.

      Probably the most significant piece of the Agile philosophy is the iterative process. Never lose sight of the overarching goal, but focus -- hard -- on those bite-sized pieces, always review your own efforts and learn how to improve your process of getting things done, and always be ready to modify all mid-term and long-term goals as the journey unfolds, as new information comes to light.

      ... And I realize I'm meandering, perhaps, a bit too much into the philosophy of software development ... but I hope it's clear how well this could translate over to personal development, life goals, self-help, stuff like that.

      At any rate, that's what I'm doing over the next two weeks ... I'm running my own personal "Life Goals" Sprint, adopting the various tools and terms and ideas built into Agile -- and specifically, the Scrum-style implementation of Agile (which is more philosophy than process). Depending on how it goes, I may well be doing this for a long time to come.

      Would love to discuss the idea, get feedback, pros and cons, yada ...

      16 votes
    10. Do any of you use productivity software (kanbans, scrum, etc)? How do you stay productive and organized?

      I think I want to use some type of productivity software as a bit of a more in-depth to do list. I am thinking of using Trello, which seems to have a ton of features and does mostly what I want....

      I think I want to use some type of productivity software as a bit of a more in-depth to do list. I am thinking of using Trello, which seems to have a ton of features and does mostly what I want. However, I have no need for any of the collaboration aspects as I wouldn't be using this with a team or coworkers, just myself. So I am wondering if there isn't some other software I can use to stay organized that doesn't have a ton of features I won't use. Do any of you all use something similar? Open to all suggestions, both for programs or general practices.

      13 votes
    11. Organizing life in checklists

      I was wondering if anyone organizes their life in checklists, and if so, how people go about doing it. I'm interested in starting to try this, but haven't yet taken the time to do so and I'm...

      I was wondering if anyone organizes their life in checklists, and if so, how people go about doing it. I'm interested in starting to try this, but haven't yet taken the time to do so and I'm curious what works for people.
      My idea of this came off of CGP Grey's usage, which he often talked about in his podcast with Brady Haran, Hello Internet, but I'm a Windows/Android kind of person and would probably use a program such as Notion, which I'm using for notetaking and other tasks already, to do so.

      What I'm mainly wondering is how you might structure checklists to a day of the week, and what to include/not include on there. What works for you if you've tried this before, and would you recommend it?

      13 votes
    12. Ask Tildes: How do you organize the files on your computer?

      I thought it'd be fun to see how some of you keep your computer organized. Do you follow some general scheme, keep it arbitrary, throw everything on the Desktop or in Downloads or just abuse the...

      I thought it'd be fun to see how some of you keep your computer organized. Do you follow some general scheme, keep it arbitrary, throw everything on the Desktop or in Downloads or just abuse the search bar?

      Feel free to go as general or as in-depth as you want.

      23 votes
    13. Let's talk about taking notes

      I've been thinking about note-taking a lot recently. I'm not a particularly great note-taker myself, though I do use a calendar and a to-do list. My SO is a habitual digital note-taker, but also a...

      I've been thinking about note-taking a lot recently. I'm not a particularly great note-taker myself, though I do use a calendar and a to-do list. My SO is a habitual digital note-taker, but also a hand-written journaller too. I do neither of these things (and don't feel the worse for the lack), but I am curious about how my fellow tilderen feel towards notes in general, and journalling to a lesser extent.

      Are you a note-taker? If not, why not? If so, how does it add value to your life? Do you prefer a digital or a pen-and-paper notebook, or even a hybrid approach? And do you have a system?

      24 votes
    14. How do you manage your ebooks & web documents?

      I've been organizing my personal collection of ebooks (epubs & pdfs) lately so I've been thinking of possible "best practices" to employ and wanted to open a discussion on it. There are sources...

      I've been organizing my personal collection of ebooks (epubs & pdfs) lately so I've been thinking of possible "best practices" to employ and wanted to open a discussion on it.

      There are sources for free ebooks online which are trustworthy such as https://archive.org/index.php and https://www.gutenberg.org/ which provide DRM-Free copies in multiple formats.

      These are great but a few of my ebooks are from less trusted sources so handling the security aspects should be considered as well. (Example: An interesting PDF from Hacker News or Reddit)

      General:
      For general organization and management, Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/) has been very useful so far. You can use Calibre to handle converting, meta-data, reading, and organization of your library.

      Security:
      From what I can research the epub and pdf formats can be both vulnerable to malicious but the potential is much higher for pdf. As you then might expect, pdf exploits are more common.

      A few precautions you can take include using your browsers pdf viewer versus a standalone alternative, using an up to date and secure pdf reading with JavaScript disabled, or relying on a cloud service such as google drive that allows online viewing.

      An offline e-reader is another easy solution as the malicious code would require a much more specific attack vector.

      Reading:
      https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-is-it-safe-to-download-free-ebooks-online.html
      https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/epub-javascript-security/

      12 votes
    15. How do you people at universities handle your notes?

      Specially those of you who attend courses on the field of humanities, in which I feel the amount of note-taking is even greater than most fields, given all the reading and talking that occurs...

      Specially those of you who attend courses on the field of humanities, in which I feel the amount of note-taking is even greater than most fields, given all the reading and talking that occurs during classes and out of them. How do you do it? Do you write on paper perhaps, or do you find that digital notes suit you better?
      I'm asking this because I am about to start my studies (finally) and am curious about how other people handle this task which, honestly, has been a nuisance through all my life. I'm not the best at organizing my notes and I believe it harms my studying overall.

      16 votes
    16. Announcing the alpha release of Intergrid

      Intergrid is an online outliner and note-taking app. It's inspired by – and in many ways replicates – Indigrid, except it's on the Web. It's free to use, and it's readily available right from the...

      Intergrid is an online outliner and note-taking app. It's inspired by – and in many ways replicates – Indigrid, except it's on the Web. It's free to use, and it's readily available right from the main page.

      Why Intergrid?

      The main goal of Intergrid is to help you focus on the notes.

      There are no settings. You can't pick the font. Theming is not an option. There's only content, and what you want to do with it.

      Plus, it looks cool.

      Is it feature-complete?

      Hell no. It's been in development for three months – which is to say, not very long. It still has ways to go.

      Which is why I'm keeping the initial release rather quiet: Tildes and a handful of friends are the only people to know about it so far.

      Are there bugs?

      Afraid so. There are some I know about, and there are probably some I couldn't even reach.

      Why release it, then?

      Because it works already. You can add, edit, and save your notes in-browser. As long as you have cookies enabled, it will serve you. (Intergrid doesn't use cookies, and has no tracking to speak of, but the permission for localStorage – the technology used to store and gather data about your notes – is adjacent, as far as browsers are concerned.)

      It would be of particular use to people on systems other than Windows. While the current version is focused on desktops, future versions may gain mobile support – all the more likely because, outside from a handful of hardcoded interactions and design considerations, there's nothing preventing mobile users from enjoying the app.

      There's also the pragmatic reason: something Jeff Atwood called "Always Be Shipping", all the way back in 2007. You can't get feedback on an app that has no public version. Your programming expertise and design sense will only get you so far. Getting it out there – and going forward with the feedback – is a generous part of the process.

      Where are you planning to take it?

      The first step would be the fix the bugs. There will be a list of known ones in the comments.

      Once those are fixed (or can be postponed without repercussions to being able to use the app), there are features I'm going to implement within the next couple of months. Most of them, at least initially, are going to be put in to keep up with Indigrid's feature set.

      • Views: open, move, and close columns, each hosting a different view on the notes, allowing you to gain perspective or edit multiple ideas simulatenously

      • Bookmarks: store views as separate named bookmarks, allowing you to traverse different mental spaces within the notes

      • Action History and Undo/Redo: record changes to the notes and time-travel between its different states, because sometimes, you want to be able to "go there" and not be weighted down by rock-solid commitment

      • Offline Use: work with your notes even when the Internet is down

      (Even though the code for columns is already in the development branch, I was unable to come up with a respectable way of handling it before New Year, which is when I promised to release the app.)

      In the long term, I'd like to make sure you could access your notes from any browser on any device. This plan also includes the ability to create and share read-only or editable partial copies of your notes – for example, as presentation or a basis for an online discussion. After finishing with shaping up the current, local-only version, this is where want to take the development. I reckon it would take me somewhere between 6 and 12 months to finish the codebase for this.

      Anything else I should know?

      Do keep in mind that this is an early release. There may be bugs – perhaps even the kind that will rid you of your notes. If you're uncomfortable about using software this early in development, please don't: your sanity is dearer to me than getting users.

      It will, however, get stable over time. If there's ever a breaking change on the horizon – the kind of change that will change an aspect of Intergrid radically – users will be notified about it at least two weeks ahead, so that at least they could backup their notes. I want to ensure the safety of mind for the users of Intergrid, so that they know their notes are in safe hands.

      That said, make regular backups anyway. The nodes are encoded/decoded as indented plain text, which means they can be transferred to and from a simple textfile with copy/paste. Any single whitespace character – space, tab etc. – is considered one level of indentation, so it doesn't matter how you indent your plain-text notes: they will be aligned as you'd expect. Intergrid and Indigrid both export tab-indented text.

      Can I help?

      From the coding and design perspective, I would appreciate open-source involvement. However, at this stage, even though there's a repository awaiting changes, I'm uncomfortable making it public just yet, because licensing is hard and I don't want to get into any sort of legal trouble without at least understanding what I'm dealing with.

      Once this and other aspects of open-sourcing the code are dealt with, I'm going to post another update.

      If you'd like to support the development financially, you could donate via PayPal.me. The first $5 or so will go to supporting the infrastructure: the monthly hosting payment and 1/12th of the yearly domain name price. (Even though the domain name has been paid for for the next two years, I'd like to be able to host the app reliably. The domain name is directly tied to the data saved – you can't access another website's saved data unless they're on the same main domain – which is why it's important to keep it.)

      Check out Intergrid

      19 votes
    17. Please criticize my idea for CHORES - a short-term TODO app for ADHD people (and myself in particular)

      Introduction I'm a beginner in programming, but a veteran in film and literature. I know that ideas come easy. Any normal person can come up with a good idea in a matter of minutes. The main...

      Introduction

      I'm a beginner in programming, but a veteran in film and literature. I know that ideas come easy. Any normal person can come up with a good idea in a matter of minutes. The main problem is doing it.

      Besides, I couldn't care less if someone does that before me. I'd probably benefit from their program, and even offer to collaborate. I have a bunch of other ideas in the oven anyway.

      And I'm humble enough to know that such a niche project would never attract the interest of a mega-corporation anyway.

      2. What is CHORES?

      CHORES is a short-term task manager. It's meant to organize nothing more than a few hours or less of your tasks. Month, weak or even your entire day are entirely out of its scope.

      3. Who is CHORES for?

      First and foremost, this app is for my use. But I'm certain there are other people with conditions similar to mine, especially ones with ADHD. I'm also autistic with a compulsive personality, and won't stop until I tinker with every aspect of an object. Not surprisingly, I'm a Linux, i3wm, Emacs and Neovim user. And they're excruciatingly customized.

      What I need is not a full-featured a TODO app like Remember The Milk, Todoist or Org Mode. They're too distracting, I end up just playing with the tools. I need something that allows me to track very short term chores. Thinks like brushing my teeth, taking a shower, eating, walking my dog, washing the dishes and making my bed.

      That's what I intend to do.

      4. What is ADHD

      From the United States National Institute of Mental Health:

      Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.

      4.1 Warning

      Please refrain from suggesting that the ones who use such tools just need to make an effort instead. That's a cliche most people with ADHD and other mental health issues probably heard many times, and by saying that you may cause distress. If you need more information, please refer to the link posted above.

      5. Why another "TODO" app?

      People with severe ADHD like myself frequently forget what they're doing, and what they should do in the very short term. I'm talking 2, 3 or 5 tasks from now. To give you an idea of how bad it is, right now I have an Emacs Org Mode file with the following tasks:

      * Now
      ** TODO Take Ritalin
      ** TODO Start chronometer on Ritalin
        - Tells me when the effect wears off
      ** TODO Take a shower
      ** TODO Take the laptop to the living room
      ** TODO Wash the dishes
      ** TODO Study Python
      ** TODO Post on Tildes
      

      But Emacs and Org Mode do a lot more than that, and this can be very distracting (right now I'm writing this post because creating another file from my now.org file was way too easy, for example).

      Considering that I am the main target audience of this program, any space for tinkering is a dangerous avenue for procrastination.

      6. Who is CHORES for

      The primary target of this project are people with:

      1. ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
      2. similar conditions or personality traits

      In sum: if you have extreme difficulty focusing, remembering and fulfilling your tasks in the very short term, you may find this program useful.

      7. Who is CHORES not for

      The majority of people can concentrate and perform their short-term tasks with a reasonable degree of efficiency. If that is your case, you have little to gain by using CHORES.

      8. Features

      CHORES is a short-term task manager. It's meant to organize nothing more than a few hours: not your month, weak or even your day.

      1. CLI Linux app (Mac, Windows, GUI, and mobile could happen in the future)
      2. Hard limit of ten tasks (with the option to reduce)
      3. Only the very essential configurations available
      • tinkering is a huge time drain for ADHD people
      • because of that, the defaults will have to be extremely sensible.
      1. Started Stopped status clearly marked by character or highlighting

      8.1 What you would be able to do with CHORES:

      1. Add up to ten tasks
      2. Reorder/Start/Stop/Done these tasks
      3. Undo only one operation
      4. See only the last ten completed tasks

      9. Answer to Possible Questions

      9.1 Why Not Keep Using Org Mode? Or maybe Taskwarrior?

      Org Mode and Emacs are wonderful tools, but they're also a perfect playground for procrastinators. It simply does too much. Emacs is like a box of legos, and that's the last thing an ADHD person needs when it comes to tracking short-term tasks.

      Taskwarrior suffers from the same issue.

      9.2 Why Not todo.txt and similar apps?

      This may seem crazy, but for a severe ADHD person, even todo.txt gives way too many options and features. It is, after, an actual TODO app. I can add 1000 tasks todo.txt. It has an extensive wiki, projects, tags, context tags, special value tags. You might just say: just don't use these options. But that

      9.3 Why not use the extremely minimalist t task manager, by Steve Losh?

      I like t very much, and, depending on its license, I'll probably use at least some of its code. But t lacks some features CHORES requires, such as:

      1. Limit task amount
      2. Add tasks to the bottom (t last tasks randomly, or at least something that seem random to me)
      3. Reorder tasks
      4. Undo
      5. Easily view completed tasks
      6. Add Start/Stop status to a task

      9.4 Why not pen and paper?

      This is a very personal anwer, but here we go:

      1. I will lose the paper every 30 minutes
      2. I will lose the pen every 30 minutes
      3. I will forget to look at the paper, it will probably end up crumpled in my pock
      4. Many of my tasks, such as programming and studying, already happen in the computer anyway
      5. One of my medications interferes with my motor skills and my handwriting is hard to understand - even for me
      6. I like computers. The fact that I like computers makes more likely for me to actually look at the tasks.
      7. In the future, I can add alerts. Can't do that with paper
      11 votes
    18. First release of my native Markdown notes app, Notementum (v0.1.0)

      Screenshot I posted a few days ago about a notes app I was working on called Notementum, and I'm happy to show you the first release (0.1.0). Installation instructions are available on the Github...

      Screenshot

      I posted a few days ago about a notes app I was working on called Notementum, and I'm happy to show you the first release (0.1.0). Installation instructions are available on the Github repo: https://github.com/IvanFon/notementum

      There's still lots of things I'd like to add, both big and small, and definitely a few bugs here and there, but I've been going for too long without sharing it, and I find it's best to release as early as you can to start getting feedback, and perfect it later.

      One things that's missing is documentation. I'd like to start on this soon, but I'm probably not going to share this anywhere other than Tildes just yet, so this comment will do for now :)

      Right now, the app only runs on Linux. I'd like to add Windows support, and it almost works, the problem is that WebKit2Gtk, the embedded web view I use to show note previews, doesn't support Windows. I'm going to explore some other options in the future, whether that's figuring out how to compile it, or allowing other preview methods (user's web browser, PDF, etc.).

      The app is also very much in alpha, so you shouldn't use this for anything important, there may be bugs that can cause you to lose some of your data. If you do use this for anything, make sure you backup your notes database.

      If you want to use it, here's a wall of text on usage:

      Usage

      The notes database is located at ~/.notes.db. When you launch the app, it'll load it, or automatically create it if it doesn't exist. I'd eventually like to allow choosing different locations, but it's hard coded for now.

      The interface is fairly simple. The leftmost sidebar displays a list of notebooks, and the "middlebar" displays a list of notes. Selecting a notebook will display the notes within it in the notes list. Selecting a note will open it in the editor, which is to the right.

      To create a new note, press Escape to focus on the searchbar above the notes list, and start typing a title. If no existing notes are found, press enter, and a note will be created with the title you entered.

      To rename a note, double-click on it in the notes list.

      The editor has a toolbar with 4 buttons, from left-to-right:

      • Toggle between editor and preview (shortcut: Ctrl+E)
      • Assign the current note's notebook
      • Add an attachment
      • Delete the current note

      The green circle all the way to the right turns into a loading indicator when you have unsaved changes. Once you stop typing for a few seconds, your changes will be saved, and it'll switch back into a green circle.

      Notebooks

      Notebooks aren't created directly, they're based on what notebooks your notes are assigned to. This means that, to create a notebook, assign it to a note. To delete a notebook, just delete all the notes contained within it, or assign them to a different notebook.

      Clicking on the notebook toolbar button brings up this dialog. To create a new notebook, double click on <New notebook> and type in a name.

      Attachments

      The notes database also stores attachments. This means that the entirety your notes can be contained in your database. Clicking on the attachment toolbar button brings up this dialog. The toolbar allows you to upload an attachment or delete it respectively. Pressing Insert Selected will insert the image at your cursor in the editor (![](image.png)).

      Theme

      The screenshots show the app with my desktop Gtk theme, Arc Dark. On your desktop, it'll use whatever your theme is. It should look good with any Gtk theme, but at some point I may bundle Arc Dark with it.

      The note preview currently has it's colours hard coded to look good with Arc Dark, so it may look a bit off on other themes. I'll try to sort that out at some point.

      Planned features
      • load/save database to/from different path
      • Windows support
      • note exports
      • database encryption
      • changing syntax highlighting theme
      • note tags
      • full-text search
      • proper documentation
      • more keyboard shortcuts
      • integrated sync
        • although you should already be able to use Git, Synthing, Dropbox, etc.
      • Vim mode for editor
        • maybe somehow embed a terminal to allow using vim/emacs/whatever
      Boring technical stuff

      The app was made with Python and Gtk+ 3. I've done this before and I really enjoy the development experience, especially with Glade to design the interface. There are still some Gtk features that I should really be using to make things simpler (GtkApplication, actions, and accelerators) that I'll be adding later.

      The database uses sqlite 3. This is convenient, as it allows for storing everything in one file, and will make fast searches easier in the future. Attachments are stored as base64 directly in the database. This makes it easy to have all your notes be contained entirely in the one database, but I may have to think about a more efficient method in the future.

      Markdown rendering is done using mistletoe, which has been great to use. Syntax highlighting and MathJax renderers were already available, so it was just a matter of combining both and adding custom image loading from the database, which was very easy. Mistletoe has a very easy to use API, so this was no problem.

      For LaTeX math rendering, I'm using MathJax. It supports pretty much everything, which is nice, but it can take a while to load. I'm currently loading it from a CDN in a <script> tag, so I'm hoping once I load it from a local file it'll be a bit faster. If not, I may have to find another solution.

      Like I said, the app still has a few bugs that need to be fixed. If you find any problems, it would be great if you could leave a comment here or open a Github issue (or if you have any feature requests).

      21 votes
    19. Having issues setting goals and sticking with them? I’m working on a solution

      I am working on an app called Percent Done that is a combination of goal setting, time tracking and habit tracking. I like setting time-based goals for myself every day, such as “write for an...

      I am working on an app called Percent Done that is a combination of goal setting, time tracking and habit tracking.

      I like setting time-based goals for myself every day, such as “write for an hour” or “work on Percent Done for four hours.”

      I also like Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” method. For example, Apple Watch shows you how many days you have completed your exercise circle and tells you that you have been keeping at it for x days.

      Percent Done is a marriage of these two concepts. It allows you to set goals and track the time you spend on them, as well as how many days in a row you have consistently completed them. For example, you can add a goal that says “write for an hour every day,” and Percent Done will notify you every day to write for an hour. You will be able to tap on this goal and Percent Done will start counting back from one hour. You will also be able to see how many days in a row you have written for an hour.

      Here is a demo GIF.

      You can also add one-time goals to Percent Done with or without time tracking, so it is a task management tool as well.

      You can play with the design prototype here: Percent Done design prototype

      I would really love to get your feedback on this. If you are interested in being a beta tester, feel free to reply to this topic or e-mail me at "hi at evrim dot io."

      By the way, this is almost completely a self-promotion post. If it is against the rules, I'd be happy to remove this.

      23 votes
    20. Anybody use Strikethru?

      I used Bullet Journal for a year, then went back to Org mode with Orgzly on mobile. I find I'm more productive with pen and paper b/c when I see a rabbit hole I can't do nothing but jump into it...

      I used Bullet Journal for a year, then went back to Org mode with Orgzly on mobile. I find I'm more productive with pen and paper b/c when I see a rabbit hole I can't do nothing but jump into it and go right down, and trying to conform to ways app devs' workflows and hack them to behave the way I want cause friction which is for me greater than that of dealing with a meatspace physical notebook. Bullet Journal was nice, but I wonder if Strikethru could be even nicer. I never fully conform to these methods, but they are generally nice starting points to build a custom one, so I generally like starting out with them.

      My use case is, I have four types of tasks: projects, like "study statistics" or "transcribe scans" which can take weeks or months to complete, and sometimes have deadlines; todos which have no specific completion time (e.g. long time shopping lists, books to buy, stuff to check back on later, things to research); tasks that are scheduled for a certain date/time or a range thereof; and lastly tasks that recur on varying intervals, like posting the thread to ~books every other week or completing a particular task that pertains to a project, say reading pages from a book that is relevant to the "study statistics" project. Bullet Journal provided a means for all of this, but the amount of rescheduling and rewriting was inconvenient, and inconvenient is the evil enemy of making habits and getting things done for a fucked up procrastinator like me. When I look at Strikethru, I am not sure if it can handle this, if it's too simple for more complex stuff. So I wonder what you guys do with it. I'd be glad if you could share your workflows and/or advice me on how I could make use of this particular system, or anything else out there!

      Edit: prior art:

      I've commented on both of these talking about how I use a modified Bullet Journal method.

      8 votes
    21. Online markdown editors that are capable of handling loads of text

      I have discovered hackmd.io a few months ago and started digitalizing my massive mess of handwritten nodes together with all the terrible notepad/word mixed notes into one big personal "wiki" of...

      I have discovered hackmd.io a few months ago and started digitalizing my massive mess of handwritten nodes together with all the terrible notepad/word mixed notes into one big personal "wiki" of knowledge. But I ran into a problem. HackMd can only handle ~50k characters before starting to lag and 100k characters is the limit per note, this doesn't even fit my one summary/tips note on one programming language. Do you know any alternatives? I really like markdown, since all of the notes look clean and organized, I can insert pictures and link to websites easily, but also love to work with them online, since I have to switch between 3 computers between university, home and my laptop.

      7 votes
    22. What is your note taking workflow?

      Hi, I'm wondering how and if you're taking notes and how you manage them. I feel like I can't get to the right solution. I want something open and own my data, so I tend to prefer plain text /...

      Hi,

      I'm wondering how and if you're taking notes and how you manage them. I feel like I can't get to the right solution. I want something open and own my data, so I tend to prefer plain text / markdown files and I want to manage them on my own for privacy reasons but still be able to sync and edit them on my mobile device (iOS), desktop (macOS) and ideally online and also have full text search.

      I know about Microsoft OneNote, Google Docs/Keep, Evernote - but I just can't overcome myself to use them since it's hard to impossible to get data out of there.

      Right now I'm hosting my own git repository with gitea.io and I'm able to edit my notes on the web, on my desktop (using git clone/pull/commit/push) and with a git client (working copy) on my phone. The downside: I need to manually commit and push my changes and also pull them, it's not really in sync.

      26 votes
    23. How do you organize your bookmarks?

      For me, I have a huge collection of bookmarks in Firefox that are super unorganized. I have some semblance of folder system but...it's quite messy. I'm sure many people have a similar problem....

      For me, I have a huge collection of bookmarks in Firefox that are super unorganized. I have some semblance of folder system but...it's quite messy. I'm sure many people have a similar problem. Share your ideas on how you keep your bookmarks organized, what's your system?

      25 votes
    24. Productive vs non-productive creativity

      I have a slight struggle that I wonder if anyone else can relate to. I'm a creative "type" in that both my job (scientist) and hobbies (many, over the years) require constant innovation, in...

      I have a slight struggle that I wonder if anyone else can relate to. I'm a creative "type" in that both my job (scientist) and hobbies (many, over the years) require constant innovation, in addition to the usual labor, to keep them going.

      I have a note/journal app where I store my ideas. Sometimes these are ideas with acute utility e.g. an experiment design that I can test out the next day at work or maybe an idea for a paper. Other ideas are what I would consider "highdeas" - insights or thoughts that seem amazing when you're stoned but after you sober up they're kind of nonsense. The former are productive and the latter are non-productive forms of creativity (barring any offshoots of the latter that prove useful later on).

      But then sometimes I get idea in-between. Say, an insight into how certain human behaviors are a certain way or maybe a rant on a topic/issue in my lab work that is interesting but not valuable enough to publish or bring up in a formal meeting. My question / discussion topic for you, is, what do you do with these sort of self-ascribed interesting ideas that have no immediate value? One option is to write them out on a forum, as I am currently doing, but I would end up writing all day. Does anyone else keep track of these? Do you schedule a follow-up with these intermediate ideas for future inspiration? I currently use Joplin which is great but I don't think there are any features to stimulate creativity in this manner.

      23 votes
    25. Do you use a todo manager or something like a bullet journal? [My story of trying different planners for four months]

      [LONG POST - 4 months of trying different planners) I always wanted to use one but I never thought of analog (paper) planners and tried a lot of digital ones - link to a post. About 4 months ago I...

      [LONG POST - 4 months of trying different planners)

      I always wanted to use one but I never thought of analog (paper) planners and tried a lot of digital ones - link to a post.

      About 4 months ago I saw my friend at school using a pocket diary - similar to this image, he was writing down his tasks on it (he didn't use it again). That day I bought a good pocket diary of around 200 pages, till date I've not used more than 10 pages and its still lying around.

      I realised that I was not going to use it because it was very thick and I couldn't carry it in my pocket. I bought this pocket diary. This was thin and simple, perfect for me. I've used it the longest before switching.

      Initially I used to dump all the tasks and cross it after completion, later I introduced a date system and it was one date for one page. I wrote down tasks for the day and crossed after completion if something was incomplete I migrated it to next day. This worked well but I needed a place to dump tasks that I had to do in future so I made a future section from backside and added tasks to it. This was the final tweak and I used it for like a month. I used it for daily tasks, future tasks, some notes and contacts (I used to make contact.txt before this).

      Later IIRC I wanted to change because it was already half full and a mess because I was trying to do a lot with it. Next I mindlessly bought a notebook - something like this but with 5 sections, I didn't know what to do with it. I also don't remember why I bought it so I used it to write down stuff that I learned online and wanted to remember. It replaced my reddit save and I wrote what I wanted to remember, it is still with me and has been changed a lot (usecase).

      I made a calendar on a single page of that notebook and tracked down basic stuff on it, I started using small square sticky notes to write down tasks and that's how I left my pocket diary. Not long after I lost interest in that notebook thing and updating calendar daily was not interesting. I left that and searched a lot online. Again tried a lot of digital options but I know it will never work for me so I left it and didn't use anything for like a day before I stumbled across Strikethru.

      Strikethru is something like Bullet Journal. If you want to look at strikethru then see this video & this for Bullet Journal.

      I took that notebook and turned it into a bullet journal, I used it for ~a week before trying strikethru and then again switching to bullet journal after a week. That was testing period and I chosed bulletjournal (bujo) over strikethru. That book was also thick so not long after I made a new bujo notebook (normal 200 pages). Again it felt like a big task that I had to do daily and I lost interest, I again restarted it with a new design. In this month I switched to different notebooks/design a lot and was never satisfied. I also tried Nextcloud tasks for 3 days before again trying out bujo.

      Last year in december around a week before christmas I wanted to change it all so I went to a store and bought a new grid notebook (we used it for doing math in 1st grade). I used it for 10 days and everything broke during the last week of december, I was not at home and we went on a vacation. I took it with me but didn't update it because it was boring. It has been 5 days I was busy organising everything else again and now I've settled on what I started with (slightly better idea).

      During that time I read a lot on nosurf, pornfree, internet addiction, sleep cycles, polyphasic society, tulpas, made new friends, tried a lot of todo managers, used different journaling apps and this is what I've decided to stay with.

      I went to the store today to buy the same pocket diary that I've used the longest (1 month one). Its cheap, for 15 INR and works well for me. Over there I saw a box that said monthly planner, I took it and it had 13 small pocket diaries (similar to what I've used the longest but more thin) and with that a small case that would hold a notebook. There was one contacts pocket diary (perfect) and 12 pocket diaries one for each month. It was for this year and costed 170 INR, I didn't had money so I asked the storeman (idk what we call them, here we call them uncle) did he have cheaper option. He showed me the same piece that costed 140 INR but was for 2016, he said he would give it to me for 70 INR because he would have to throw it anyways.

      I thought that was a great deal and bought it. So now I have 12 mini diaries for each month and one contacts diary that has my big list of 10 friends contacts. After trying a lot of different options I came back to what I used for the first time. Its simple and stupid & fits in my pocket.

      It has one page for one day and I just have to cross 2016 and the day (mon, tue, etc.) thing and update it with 2019 days. In the middle it has a big two page calendar for current month, page before it has previous months small one page date list to write down events and on page after it has next months small one page date list. The last page is for notes and the cover has 2017 calender that I won't use and ignore.

      Theres little patch work todo but for that price I think I bought a good set and if I actually use this for full year then I would buy a new one next one (for 2020 & not 2017 :|)

      I've spent around 300 INR for all these (~ 4.5 USD)

      Tl;dr -> Used a lot of systems and in the end switched to what I used for the first time which is simple and fits in my pocket.

      # What do you use for managing your tasks? Do you use it daily?

      16 votes
    26. Note-taking, bookmarks, reminders and todos: What do you use to organize your life?

      I find myself on a bit of an unending quest to organize my own thoughts, especially since my work evolved into multiple streams on different projects. I have been looking for a tool to help me...

      I find myself on a bit of an unending quest to organize my own thoughts, especially since my work evolved into multiple streams on different projects.

      I have been looking for a tool to help me organize myself and focus on the things I want to do. More specifically, I keep wanting to improve my ability to remember things: Be able to remember faster, longer, recall more reliably, categorize, filter and export those things, etc.
      Links, reading material, "watch later" material, todo lists, contacts, phone numbers/emails, identities, what I know about people, reminders, highlights, emails to respond to, work logging, etc. The more I think about it, the more I have this need for a tool that essentially acts as a permanent second brain.

      I feel like I've tried everything. Note-taking apps like Keep, orgmode, wikis, journals, disorganized text files, issue trackers, Pocket, gmail itself, calendar reminders, even Magic. Nothing quite works. The issues I most consistently hit are:

      • The method is not good enough at ingesting abstract data. Examples: Anything calendar-bound is not good at storing anything that isn't related to a point in time. Pocket cannot store things that aren't links to web pages.
      • The method is far too cumbersome to be able to braindump into it or too impractical to retrieve data from. Examples: Wikis, Keep and other object-based note-taking systems are unfilterable unless you take a ton of time to attach a lot of metadata to each note. Magic is too asynchronous as you sometimes wait several minutes for responses (and it also gets far too expensive to use at the level I'd like).

      Despite trying everything, I don't know if I want to build that tool myself, because I think it probably already exists somewhere (and it might be down to me not knowing how to use the things that are already out there). Although if someone does feel inspired to build that, hit me up. :)

      My current flow looks like a frankenstein mix of Keep/Gmail/Calendar, which at least integrate with one another, and a ton of proprietary or dissociated methods (including Pocket, Discord, Spreadsheets/Drive, Magic, Kayak, 1Password and a ton of duplicate files and documents). Then it just becomes a matter of remembering what type of information is where, and how to best find it.

      So Tildes, what do you use?

      23 votes
    27. How do you keep your digital files organized?

      Mine are a bit of a mess, with decades of accumulation and lack of maintenance resulting in a forest of poorly organized folders and completely inconsistent filename schemes. I'm interested in...

      Mine are a bit of a mess, with decades of accumulation and lack of maintenance resulting in a forest of poorly organized folders and completely inconsistent filename schemes.

      I'm interested in hearing about things like folder hierarchies/taxonomies, naming conventions, and techniques for efficient access. This goes for everything from personal documents to projects to pictures to media collections.

      14 votes
    28. How do you store your bookmarks?

      I'm curious what Tildes uses to organize and store their web bookmarks. Do you rely on your browser, or do you trust some proprietary service like Pocket? Maybe you have a self-hosted solution?

      13 votes
    29. Personal Wikis

      I have been looking for some software where I can brain dump all the things I need to remember on a constant basis so I can easily find it again in the future. A personal wiki basically. I am...

      I have been looking for some software where I can brain dump all the things I need to remember on a constant basis so I can easily find it again in the future. A personal wiki basically. I am wondering what any of you tilderians are using?

      The things I am looking for:

      Absolute requirements:

      • Open Source: I want to be in control of the data myself, and I want to be able to hack on it myself as the need arises.
      • Self Hostable: Goes hand-in-hand with with open sourceness, I want the data to live on the server in my apartment, under my own control.
      • An API of some sort so I can programmatically add/read/modify data.

      Nice to haves:

      • Revision history of some sort.
      • Common/simple data format for easy backup and longevity.
      • Web interface, with mobile compatibility.
      • Lightweight as possible, so I can run it on a low powered server.

      Does anything know anything like that?

      Options I have heard of:

      Here is a previous discussion on the topic @ Lobste.rs

      25 votes
    30. Do many of you use Kanban in your personal life?

      Edit: Typo in Topic. Read it as "How many..." or "Do many of you..." A Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables you to optimize the flow of your work. Source I am using...

      Edit: Typo in Topic. Read it as "How many..." or "Do ~many of~ you..."

      A Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables you to optimize the flow of your work. Source

      I am using the NextCloud's Deck app to manage my Kanban board, just got started. Other Digital boards: Cryptpad (has kanban board) and Taiga. I know only these implementation and all of these work well.

      Update: I am no longer using it.

      10 votes
    31. Need advice about Tomboy notes and note apps in general

      I'm looking for some advice on what note programs people recommend. Not a basic text editor, but something capable of doing some basic categorizing, chronological sorting, that sort of thing. I've...

      I'm looking for some advice on what note programs people recommend. Not a basic text editor, but something capable of doing some basic categorizing, chronological sorting, that sort of thing. I've used Evernote most recently, but I'm becoming less and less of a fan. I don't need cloud sync necessarily, although device sync could be handy. A pleasant UI (not fettered with extraneous crap) would be nice, but aesthetic appeal takes a backseat to navigation and stability. Target OS is mostly likely going to be windows 10.

      What are you experiences with note apps, what are your favorites?


      (A bit of context for anyone interested)
      Years ago, I used tomboy notes in Ubuntu for keeping track of timesheets/daily logs. It seemed like a good program to set up for my step dad to use as well. A few years later, Tomboy notes petered out without much fanfare. I've kept his laptop running with that setup for as long as I could, but the hardware is just getting worn out (it's about 10 years old now).

      So! Time to get him an upgrade. This time around, I don't think I'm gonna set up up with Linux. He isn't really up to the task of doing his own troubleshooting in linux (i.e. when an automatic update breaks something), and I haven't even been keeping up on Linux for the past few years myself. So I'm probably going to set him up on a Windows machine.

      I should be able to export the tomboy notes database fairly easy, but it would be a huge load off my mind if I could settle on a decent program to migrate to first.

      Thanks in advance for any input!

      11 votes
    32. Anybody "hobonichi" or bullet journal?

      I own a hobonichi, which is really just a hipster day-planner. The key feature for me is the river paper, which allows water colouring. I try to water colour everyday. Started that way at the...

      I own a hobonichi, which is really just a hipster day-planner. The key feature for me is the river paper, which allows water colouring.

      I try to water colour everyday. Started that way at the beginning of the year, and after a few months, now pretty much use it as a day-planner. Of course, I would love to get back to it, and will make an effort to at least catch up over the weekends.

      Would love to hear how you journal and any habits that work for you.

      12 votes
    33. Alternatives to Markdown for writing short documentation/TODOs?

      Hi guys, I often find myself writing small text files for projects, like a bit of documentation or TODOs. I have a proper system in place for larger projects, but would love to be able to scribble...

      Hi guys,

      I often find myself writing small text files for projects, like a bit of documentation or TODOs. I have a proper system in place for larger projects, but would love to be able to scribble down things for larger ones.

      As big of a fan of Markdown as I am, I find that it's often inappropriate for these kinds of tasks. For example, I find myself mimicking a task list with multiple-paragraph list items.

      What do you guys use? Do you know of any Markdown alternatives that give you a bit more control over the layout?

      Thanks!

      14 votes
    34. How do you manage your tasks, keep focused

      I'm currently in a "how can I improve and refocus" and wanted to see what this group thinks since either seems we have some pretty thoughtful and techy people here. I have toyed around for years...

      I'm currently in a "how can I improve and refocus" and wanted to see what this group thinks since either seems we have some pretty thoughtful and techy people here.

      I have toyed around for years with different techniques. I got really into GTD and used several apps focused on that even writing my own JavaScript app to use with Google sheets.

      I've used spreadsheets, OneNote, Wunderlist, plain text files.

      What do you use to keep your tasks moving forward and how do you use these tools to manage your tasks and get work done? I found spreadsheets are nice because you can do a lot of scratch work but it's hard to "check them off' but many "check them off" tools don't give you a lot of scratch workspace. OneNote is cool but I can't stand the Microsoft environment and it doesn't seem to give a lot of indication how best to use the tool. Maybe I should do a training....

      10 votes
    35. On the rise and fall of Delicious, the online bookmarking service

      Online/digital bookmarking and excerpting is something that really interests me because I think most if not all existing options for it fall very short of the functionality I wish existed, and...

      Online/digital bookmarking and excerpting is something that really interests me because I think most if not all existing options for it fall very short of the functionality I wish existed, and that I think could exist.

      One of the first online bookmarking services I used was Delicious, and for a few years it was irreplaceable for me. However it languished after it was bought by Yahoo and then resold, and since then I’ve observed its slow and steady decline from afar.

      The purpose of this post is twofold:

      1. I want to know the current state of online bookmarking for you. I’m curious to know if it’s as much of an unmet need in anyone else’s life as it seems to be in mine.
        • Were you once a bookmarker and gave up due to the seeming futility of it?
        • Have you never been interested in bookmarking and/or don’t see the point of it?
        • Are you an active bookmarker, and if so what tools or workflows do you use, and what kinds of content do you bookmark?
      2. I thought I would share some of the research I did into Delicious’ various design iterations over the years via the Internet Archive. It’s a cool birds-eye survey of how the service’s ethos, goals and design changed over time. Beyond the value it provides as a case study, I think there are greater lessons and insights that can be gained from observing the rise and fall of what was once such a beloved online service.

      As a sidenote, I also found this explanation of Delicious' approach to tagging to be very interesting: del.icio.us/help/tags | 21 February 2006

      I hadn't realized that Delicious was actually the first to introduce the concept of user-controlled tags for bookmarks:

      When Delicious was first launched, it was the first use of the term "tag" in the modern sense, and it was the first explicit opportunity where website users were given the ability to add their own tags to their bookmarks so that they could more easily search for them at a later time. This major breakthrough was not much noticed as most thought the application at the time "cool" but obvious. – Source

      Edit: I hope it's alright to edit a post this many hours after having submitted it. There were a few important updates that I really wanted to include here.

      18 votes