Trello for todo/project items, simplenote/nvalt & pinboard for other notes.
Part of the trick is reviewing & refactoring the trello lists on occasion to make sure the 1-3 boards you look at the most don’t feel unwieldy. Example: I recently threw several lists of wacky ideas and things into an unsorted “someday hell” board.
Pen and paper. I carry a notebook with me and rewrite the todo list (to a new page) every couple of days.
This makes it very clear what is and what is not a priority. If I rewrite the same thing for tenth time, maybe it's not important after all.
Pretty primitive but I write the notes on my refrigerator with a dry erase marker. Every morning when I make breakfast I read the notes, check off what I've done, prioritize what I haven't and add new to-dos. If I have to travel that day I take a picture of the notes on my phone and save the pic to my gallery.
I find it more satisfying to physically draw a line through the tasks that I finished, rather than check them off a list on my phone. If a task stays on the fridge for more than a week I regretfully discard it as something that didn't need doing.
As a bonus my kids add notes to my list and draw silly pictures beneath some of them.
I keep plain text files in Dropbox. It isn't a perfect solution, but its cross-platform, more flexible, and less annoying than anything else I've tried so far.
I use google Keep to log new notes. Then every morning I move all new notes to a google spreadsheet. The key to a well organized spreadsheet is at least 3 columns. 1 with the date, a second with any meta, and the third with the actual note.
I may have to look into emacs org mode but the above system scales well to potentially hundreds of notes. And if somehow it didn't, I would just add another column.
I maintain my TODO list in Pocket Informant[1], TODOs are synchronized with toodledo[2] and calendar is synchronized with Google Calendar. I am a strong proponent of moving TODOs to calendar to block out time and understand what I am doing next.
For notes, I am using Notebooks App for iOS[3]. The biggest selling point is being able to synchronize with the directory hierarchy of markdown files via WebDAVS. On the desktop, the same directory can be accessed via applications like Simplenote[7] or nvALT[6]. I use my own web app and even a bunch of shell and Python scripts working with this directory as I like to experiment with information organization features specific to me.
In general, to discover new tools, I like to read UsesThis[4] interviews. It has very good Signal to Noise ratio once you start reading the interviews but quickly levels off as people tend to use mostly the same well-established tools. ProductHunt[5] is low signal-to-noise ratio, with lots of new unproven but interesting tools.
[1] https://www.pocketinformant.com/ [2] https://www.toodledo.com/ [3] https://www.notebooksapp.com/ [4] https://usesthis.com/ [5] https://www.producthunt.com/ [6] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [7] https://simplenote.com/
I scream them into the endless void.
Used to use a mix of google drive, keep and quiver notebook [1] but it was a pain to manage. Drive and Keep are slow to boot, the search sucks and there's no support for tags. Quiver was nice for programming notes and markdown editing but the mobile client doesn't support editing.
I recently switched to Bear [2] and ditched all of the other apps.
If I have some important tasks and TODOs I try to put them in my google calendar with a specific date and an allotted time. That way I know when it will get done and can make sure that I don't waste too much time on it.
Tiddlywiki, because it lives locally, is insanely fast and there's nothing I think easier/faster than it for making notes and todo's are more or less just notes.
I keep all notes and to-do lists in a single system of record. These days it's Asana, but in the past I've used pen and paper, Apple Notes, and other tools.
I use GTD to keep on top of stuff. Once a day I go through everything that's been added to the system but not yet categorized. I move it to the appropriate to-do list or reference document where I'll know to find it later.
I have lists for things like "gift ideas for family", "potential software experiments", "active work projects", "books to read", or "to consider next year". I also have a primary list for things that actively need doing.
Remember, it's not the tool that matters. It's the process and the system.
“Hey Siri, remind me to check if anyone relied to my pull request tomorrow at 9:30am”
Then I rely on he fact that pending iOS reminders sit on my phone lock screen until I mark them as completed. I also use the “remind me again in an hour / tomorrow” options a lot.
Olympus WS-600 dictation device. It's a slim thing about the size of a cigarette lighter, but it has actual physical buttons, and a built-in USB connector to dump it to my laptop. I review it every morning, and depending on the nature of the note, it goes into (a) Google Calendar, (b) a hand-written notebook, (c) an Emacs Org Wiki which I sync between my devices with Syncthing, or (d) the Notes folder for any of my specific projects.
It's the same thing Newt is speaking into in the movie Pacific Rim. I was tickled when I saw that. They're hard to get nowadays; the later 700 and 800 models are bigger, clunkier, and cheaper-feeling.
This is what I've been doing for a while, with good results. Step one: get it out of my head. Short reminder sentence in e-mail to myself, or google keep, napkin whatever. Step two: get it out of my head. Periodically (same day, same week) I triage these notes into a single continuously growing brain dump google doc, or a dedicated google doc per subject in a folder if its warranted.
Before I often stressed when I couldn't recall something I knew was important or had been a cool idea. Now I still don't have time to explore 90% of the things I think about, but I don't stress about it.
Bullet Journaling with a notebook, Google Voice number with transcripts sent to a specific email alias for ingesting into my gmail inbox with a Notes label (and a contact in my iPhone: "Siri, call My Notes").
I replaced my wallet with this:
https://www.levenger.com/International-Pocket-Briefcase-2269...
It has 3x5 cards and a pen. This is basically my real-world inbox. I jot down notes, recommendations, ideas. The important next step is to regularly empty the inbox, so that useful jottings end up turned into something that gets handled. E.g., times and dates go into my calendar, tasks go into my kanban board, books I might want to read go in my Amazon wishlist, etc.
A diary in Workflowy, per project. The diary is distinct from to-do list (for that I have a separate section in Workflowy, called Projects, and a smartphone to-do app for next actions).
Evernote. But don't get obsessed by technical details of what tool is best: Evernote, Onenote, Tiddlywiki, etc... Just make sure you have all work/private/short term/long term notes in one place. Preferably accessible via multiple devices so that you can always access them.
And depending on the note type go through them every day/week/month to see if they are still relevant. Some people like to go the whole GTD way but I like to pick just the parts that work for me.
I use mnemonics like memory pegs when I need reminders. I like to be freeform so I also have several small paper notebooks going at once. Daily journal entries and longer stuff goes in markdown files in folders on Dropbox. I like Regexxer or Grep or ag for searching those. Google Keep for longer notes if on my phone. Hi-Q MP3 Recorder for Android if I need to do voice recordings. I don't like transcribing those voice notes later but the recorder software is really nice.
I use Bear alongside my Apple Watch and dictate ideas that I process later under a GTD-like tagging system depending on the type of note.
I usually brainstorm / take notes with OneNote, which lets me type, record voice notes, attach files, and draw when I need to draw (even on my laptop thanks to touchscreens). Once finished I'll go through those notes and turn them into categorized to-dos in the Microsoft To-Do app, adding due dates, reminders and little notes where necessary.
2do (https://www.2doapp.com) on iOS/Android/Mac, synced to self-hosted CalDav or popular cloud services. Supports audio memos, can parse email to generate todo items, reliable with thousands of tasks, expressive filter queries, regularly updated to use new OS features.
I use pen-and-paper for my normal notes about things I want to do.
Until recently I had a section in my notebook devoted to project ideas, but it got a bit unwieldy, and I've switched to keeping those in Markdown: https://gitlab.com/lyndsysimon/ideas
I either use an "ideas" tag in Standard Notes, or have 1 pinned note called "Ideas" or "Journal" that I constantly make updates to.
This is an app I've been building for over a year now. Benefits are encryption + cross-platform sync.
I use Omnifocus because it's very customizable to whatever workflow I want.
But I think the tool is basically unimportant, compared to actually in practice using it daily. Pen/paper, huge file, Evernote, they're all useless if you're not actually doing the work or actually consulting them regularly.
org-mode. More concretely, using org-capture and org-protocol.
I use a Bullet Journal for all my stuff. Its style of organizing allows to collect all sorts of things.
I tried a lot of TODO and note taking apps and none of it worked for me. Once written down, I remember most of it without looking at my journal.
I write markdown files with Typora, backed up and synced with Resilio sync. I still use Evernote for clipping web sites. I'm working on a web clipper that saves directly to markdown so I can finally ditch Evernote.
I use a big ass text file and when it grows to about 10,000 lines long I archive it and start again.
I have a history of all of those huge text files which give me great insight into what I have been up to over the years.
Evernote - I haven't found any other program with such a good capture tool. I also regularly use Google Keep to capture small notes. But all these plaintexts ultimately go to an Emacs org file.
http://forwardapp.co/ - we bought the app 'Jot', rebranded it and brought it back for this purpose
* Ad-hoc tasks likely without immediate dates: Any.do
* Long term notes without tasks or deliverable dates: OneNote
* Short term notes pending a permanent home: Apple's IOS Notes
* Dated tasks: Google Calendar
Reminders are a combination of calendar, alarm clock, or task items in my mobile and tasks in either Thunderbird for my private life or Outlook at work.
Tinderbox: http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/
DropVox, and then configure Evernote desktop to auto-import and remove/cleanup the audio file/s at the same time.
I use the Clear app on iOS. Simple, means I will use it a lot, and I do.
If I need to voice memo, then I just use the stock voice memos app.
Workflowy! The nested bullet structure is so simple and quick but powerful. If ur a vim head there is also vimflowy.
For things to be done today I email myself.
Anything needing organisation goes into Trello.
Trello. It's the best. Also Google keep is pretty good for one offs.
On desktop:
- Resophnotes (using Simple notes backend)
.
On mobile:
- Google keep (Writing nonote s- Notational Acceleration (Reading notes)
Evernote, moving to notion if it gets android client!
nvALT on the desktop with its text files being in a synced Dropbox folder (so you can access them on mobile through another client).
I use Google Keep.
Wunderlist for tasks... Onenote for notes.
iCloud Notes on the phone, which is convenient from lock screen in iOS 11.
Mix use of iCloud Notes and Sublime Text on the laptop
Google keep, simple and effective.
How do you send a reminder to yourself in the far future? How do you verify your own assumptions if they are not validated with future data?
I bacially want this guy, as a Service.
Google Keep
Emacs org-mode.
If someone sends me an e-mail about something that needs doing for work, I hit a keybinding, and a buffer pops up with a TODO item, by default scheduled for today, with a link back to that e-mail (and any selected text added as well). I write a quick headline, then C-c C-c and it's filed under "Misc" in my work org file. Sometimes I hit C-c C-w to immediately file it under some project heading instead (not much harder because of auto-completion). Since it's scheduled in my work org file, it shows up in my work agenda, which I open every morning and whenever I need a task to do. When I'm working on the task, I might write further notes for that task under that heading. It's all plain text, easily greppable, versioned in git.
I have a non-work org file and capture template too. I go through the non-work agenda a bit more rarely than the work one (spending less time on work is on my non-work TODO), but it's a nice way of sending messages to yourself in the future ("* TODO renew passport SCHEDULED: <2027-01-30 +10y>"). And I feel pretty confident in the system, since I've been using it for over ten years …
If I'm not at my computer and I get an idea or something, I'll typically just send myself a very short message over IRC. I find phone-typing a pain, and rarely have the need to look at my agenda on the phone (though I know there are org-mode phone apps should the need arise).