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466 sats \ 4 replies \ @chrono 18 May 2023 freebie \ on: How do you organize your working day? bitcoin

I create a file called YYYY-MM-DD.txt at the start of each day.

In it, I write my daily tasks, takeaways from meetings I attended, people I spoke with, and everything I learned from that day. I store each file in a directory called notes.

When I need to find something, it's as easy as :

grep "thing" 2022-*

At the end of each year, I create a file called YYYY-summary.txt with important information that I want to carry over into the next year.

I've used this process for 15 years. It's simple, efficient, and, best of all, free.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @franzap OP 19 May 2023

Fantastic - if something simple works well enough no need to complicate it.

I got into the flow of using second-brain type apps and they're super useful without getting on my way: outlining, tagging, querying.

22 sats \ 2 replies \ @chrono 19 May 2023

"Second brain" apps are great, in theory, but one always runs into the issue of data ownership and product longevity. If all my notes are being dumped into Obsidian, for example, that information must be on their servers; I don't want that most of the time. Additionally, third-party apps are often resource heavy or were once free and, suddenly, require payment to use.

You mentioned outlining, tagging, and querying. While those aren't included in a plain-text file, org-mode in Emacs is as close as you can get in a plain-text format.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @franzap OP 19 May 2023

Agree! But

I use an open source app, data is encrypted on disk and never leaves my device (blocked all outgoing connections just in case).

I tried Emacs for org-mode a few years ago as it looked very cool from Youtube videos. Maybe I'm dumb but I found it terribly annoying, huge waste of time customizing it and felt like I needed a PhD to use Emacs shortcuts.

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @chrono 20 May 2023

Maybe I'm dumb but I found it terribly annoying, huge waste of time customizing it and felt like I needed a PhD to use Emacs shortcuts.

Learning and using Emacs is a time commitment that pays off the longer you use it. They don't call it an "editor for life" for nothing.

You're not dumb; Emacs has a steeper learning curve than vim. If you ever consider returning to Emacs, the best tutorial is building your own config (slowly) and practice using the keybindings and commands. It'll click eventually.