Original post here.
I’ve decided to switch to Zim.
I figured out how to set up my hierarchical lists!
You do it as such:
:Parent:Child
Laugh if you wish, but I figured it out… @sndchaser on identi.ca showed me a picture of his desktop, and I saw at the bottom of his Zim session, there was that same syntax. I started using it, and found that it worked perfectly!
It was a “duh” moment.
*shakes head*
I’ve been messing about with different desktop wiki and note-taking software. So far, I have tried:
I’m using Tomboy because I can set the folder where it saves things to my Dropbox, and easily sync my notes between my two computers. It makes things simple to use.
I’m also using Tasque for my to-dos. I can easily hook up to Remember the Milk and work with my tasks.
I guess I’ll use the two different productivity programs (even though I use Evolution for email right now and I could use the memos function in there). Seems to work for me right now… I was hoping for an “all-in-one” solution that hooked up to all my web services. I think that’s a pipe dream.
I take notes.
I’ve always had notes. At work, I had a ton of sticky notes and if they got disturbed, then I’d go into forty-seven fits. They had everything from phone numbers to names to to-dos and random numbers. I managed to get it all under control in a Steno book within a few weeks, but people loved to hand me sticky notes for tasks I had to do.
I wished I had Tomboy Notes in this situation. I used a series of text files as well as a series of to-do lists in my Steno book.
I’m using Tomboy to manage my little thoughts. Ideas for NaNoWriMo, ideas for blogs, ideas for other fic, specific job search tasks, and the like.
Simple, eh? I have different things connected to each other, like everything in the NaNoWriMo notebook.
I’m using Tomboy to organize my thoughts for my NaNoWriMo story. You can also see that I’ve got a section for “Job Search” in which I have notes pertaining to my… job search. Notes about companies, notes to myself about email, etc.
I’ve gotten another program to manage notes called basKet. @slackusr suggested it. I haven’t figured out how to really set it up yet, but I wanted to get it so I have another choice besides Tomboy Notes and sticky notes. I’ll post more info about it once I use it more, but I’m very impressed right now. I’d like to give it a try. It seems like a very powerful application.
I think this works very well for me. I love being able to keep things organized so I can find it later. These note programs will help me.
I’ve still been working through a GTD setup (partly because I have time to, heh) and I’ve been experimenting with several different things.
Today I wanted to get Lightning working in Thunderbird. Well, that didn’t work very well, as I couldn’t figure out how to get Lightning to sync with my Google Calendars.
So… I got Sunbird (sudo apt-get install sunbird) and then found a Remember the Milk extension for it. Download, install, connect, and now I have RTM in Sunbird.
(I’m app-hopping; Tasque is the first app I used to manage my to-do list, I may go back to it. I’ve kept it installed.)
This way, I have my calendar (synced with G-cal), my to-do list (synced with RTM), and my email (Thunderbird, if I choose to use it) all on the desktop. This is good for a “backup” of my stuff, so I can get to it even if I don’t have access to the net (Oh, the humanity!!).
I’m still doing the manual sync with my moleskine and pen to the computer. It’s easier to deal with than some sort of PDA that doesn’t have compatibility with Ubuntu. Also, my moleskine doesn’t run out of batteries at an inopportune time, nor does it have games to distract me.
I just hope that I can stick with this GTD system. I like having a list of everything I have to do, and I really wish I had this system back when I was at school (high school and college). I wish I had all of these tools available to me when I was in college, as it would have been easier to deal with meetings and classes and everything else.
To anyone that’s in higher education, get a GTD setup that will work for you. Organize your projects, classes, assignments and club meetings on your calendar as well as your “free time” and “study time”. If you don’t schedule it, you won’t know where your time goes.
I devote a lot of time to reading Lifehacker. My favorite posts center around the “workspace renovation” of an office or a room.
I love the cleanup posts.
This inspires me to want to re-do my desk once a week (even more if there are more than one workspace post in a week!). Today, I did a slight cleanup of my desk, which is tucked into the corner of our family room (pics are in previous workspace posts in this blog).
Exactly what I did was to take the games that were under the desk and move them down to the basement where there are other games on shelves. This not only gets them out from under my workspace, but puts them in the same location as other games. This way, the games are easily found when you want to play.
I went through the “box” of crap I brought home from Delphi when I was laid off. I’ve been meaning to do it, but I never got around to it. I threw away all the safety crap and miscellaneous Delphi-specific crap. I kept some stuff from my last job (GD&T books) but most of it was thrown away. I kept the folder of crap I got from my contract house, lest I need it for something.
I wanted to clear out that area. I did a pretty good job and now I have room for some of my other stuff that I want easier access to (like office supplies).
Clearing off stuff I didn’t need hopefully will organize my thoughts as well as let me embark on my new GTD method.
The GTD method has a few parts:
Here’s the way it works: I “sync” stuff between the Google Calendar and the Moleskine. Remember the Milk organizes my to-do lists (and has recurring events; awesome!). The cell is for my phone numbers. Gmail (besides its awesome email function) also serves as my “address book”. I’ve tried to keep analogue address books, but it never works for me. Stuff gets out of date, and I always forget to have it with me. With the phone, it’s right there and I’m almost never without it.
Do note: people who follow me on twitter/identi.ca/plurk/friendfeed may have noticed that I was using Toodledo. Yes, I was. I found it didn’t sync with Tasque (a nice desktop app for lists) and I wanted that. Also, I wasn’t using all of its features. I need a simple to-do list that syncs with the web and RTM takes care of that. I like having the priority (1, 2, 3) setup. It was pretty much the same as RTM but it had loads of other features: stars, folders, tags, etc. All I really need are tags, priority listing and syncing with a desktop app.
So, this GTD method works for me. It might not work for others, but I think I’ve found the perfect way to “get things done”.
