Personal Information Management
When I was a greenhorn employee, I was once asked by a colleague:
“What do you use as a to-do list?” and my naïve reply of
<FULL-FEATURED-ENTERPRISE-TICKETING-SYSTEM> caused him and another
engineer to burst out laughing at my uninitiation.
At that point, I recognised the lack of a “real” system of managing my tasks and local information. Since then, I have tried various tools and approaches, and will mention what I have currently settled on, and what has proven to work over an extended period of time.
Requirements
Should be in a non-proprietary format.
Syncing is an anti-feature. I’d rather not have them reside on an external system with the attendant security risks.
All information should be stored locally on the work laptop.
I don’t require it to be accessible from my personal phone either.
Should be blazing fast.
Should NOT require an internet connection.
Pen and Paper
After all these years and advancements, it is likely we may never come up with a better system of taking notes, in a similar way that the only time-tested writing material is vellum (parchment).
Writing on real paper is the most enjoyable form of writing, and the gold standard that all other methods aspire to.
You just can’t doodle in an IDE. Sometimes in a boring meeting, doodling is what might help you get through it. Having a good pen and paper nearby is essential for those moments. It would be foolish to dismiss Pen and Paper.
A place for digital PostIt™ Notes
I had tried out and used void as a terminal task list and as a place to quickly store short snippets of text, but I started experienced the limitations and frustrations of terminal-only UI. Reluctantly, I moved off it. In any case, it’s worth checking out for sure.
Later on, I came across TreeSheets on the Orange Site. You can think of it as the lovechild of Org and Spreadsheet software.
TreeSheets is used as a digital whiteboard and as a graphical outlining tool. It is remarkably powerful, and if there is one tool out of all the ones that I mention in this article that you should take a look at, it is TreeSheets.
When I take interviews, I have the entire interview outline in a TreeSheets document, that I keep referring to structure the interview, and also take notes as required.
What I particularly like about TreeSheets, is that the author clearly uses it as his daily driver, and it shows with the smooth UI, performance and easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.
While it does use a binary format, it is documented and the author assures us that it should not be too difficult to write a parser for it. A small matter of programming.
In terms of tackling writer’s block, I find TreeSheets helps me put down the words faster than Org. A quick outline and mindmap can be exported as plaintext and fleshed out further in Org.
Future Steps
TreeSheets has a good exporting feature to various formats, but as an Org user, I would very much like to see Org export and import which would open up game-changing functionality where I can have the option to prototype a document either as an Org document in Emacs, or as a TreeSheets document, and seamlessly move back and forth as necessary.
A knowledge base and a cheatsheet
Early on, I used to store short code and shell snippets useful information in an Org file for easy copy/pasting. For whatever reason, I don’t like searching for stuff across multiple Org files, or in Emacs in general, so was looking for something that I can read in a web browser.
After reading an article by Nikita Voloboev, I decided that I would like to start using wiki software in a similar manner.
There are many lightweight wikis out there, but for now I have settled on Fossil Wiki, and I’ve been using it consistently for close to two years.
You may know Fossil Wiki as the wiki that comes packaged with the Fossil Version Control System written by the same author of the all-conquering SQLite database.
DRH wrote Fossil VCS to manage the development of SQLite, and Fossil itself uses SQLite under the hood as its data format, and—you know what I’m going to say next—Fossil VCS is also used to manage its own development which is a delightful example of bootstrapping and dogfooding.
The Bad
I want to get the bad things out of the way first. I’m pleased to say there is very little I find bad about Fossil Wiki. However, I believe others may find its spartan UI, and seemingly simplistic array of features to be underwhelming compared to modern note taking web applications.
After using editors like Emacs and Vim, no text input box on the web is going to be satisfactory. The Fossil Wiki editor is barebones in both a good way and a bad way. Ideally, I would like to edit markdown Fossil Wiki pages in Emacs, but unfortunately no one has written that integration as yet. 😉
Another thing that could be explored in this area is to integrate CodeMirror (or ProseMirror for that matter) into it, so that the editing experience is more full featured.
There is no syntax highlighting for code blocks, but I have gotten used to the plain code formatting, so this is a non-issue for me. The main problem I find with syntax highlighting on the browser, is that many times it does not go well with the colour scheme of the page, so this is one annoyance that is eliminated altogether.
The only reason I tolerate the underwhelming editing experience, is because I spend much more time reading my Fossil Wiki’d notes than writing pages.
The Good
Other than the minor issues highlighted above, everything else is razor sharp and butter smooth. This is one of my favourite pieces of software in terms of how performant, lightweight, and the pure pleasure of using it.
Over a period of almost two years, I have created a few dozen pages in my local Fossil Wiki that I frequently refer to like a cheatsheet of sorts.
For example, I have a page called MongoDB, where I write sample queries. For any tricky query or operation, I have sample code that I refer when I need to. It is written in such a way that it can be read hundreds of times (and by now, I may well have). It’s almost a lightweight exo brain.
Another thing was that I wanted to be able to easily copy/paste snippets and sections and send it to my co-workers, for them to use in the moment, or as skeleton markdown documents that they can insert into their own note-taking system and extend as they wish.
Fossil Wiki has more functionality than that a single user requires. For example, it has integrated chat and forum functionality which I could use to talk to myself, but it is impossible to unironically do so.
Notable mention: pikchr
A hidden gem of Fossil Wiki is its own diagramming tool called pikchr. It takes some getting used to, but once the basics are mastered, you can make no-nonsense technical diagrams. The language is remarkably full featured, ergonomic and well thought through; this is usually the case with any DRH-ware.
When required, pikchr can be used to quickly create diagrams without having to fiddle around with proprietary tools.
As a new parent, I am willing to do something that requires me to concentrate intensely for a short period of time, rather than spend an extended amount of time fiddling around with something that doesn’t require me to concentrate. pikchr hits the sweet spot, between difficulty and effectiveness.
I have made many diagrams in my wiki pages. These diagrams help me absorb and remember the material better.
Task management, and general notetaking
Now, we come to the venerable Org Mode. Org is so good, that you could use Emacs for just that functionality alone. I have been using Org for a long time now, but until recently never Org’d all-the-things.
My frustrations with Org Mode
While I heavily use Org mode for my workflows, but I frequently get the feeling that while it may be the best place to /write/ notes in, it may not be the best to read notes in. I don’t like reading lots of plain text in a text editor. Of course, I enjoy using Emacs, but sometimes, I want to read information in a web browser instead of having to always open up Emacs, and then switch to a buffer and then copy/paste (I have bound this to a easy shortcut using the Super key (s-c, s-v), but still, I dislike copy/paste in Emacs and can’t seem to shake off the clunky feeling.)
Task Tracking
Emacs and Org are similar in the sense that you’re only going to get your money’s worth if you buy into it fully. They are both meant to be invested in deeply, and it is only until that is done where you unlock certain superpowers which makes you feel like a wizard, and others tremble/recoil in awe/disgust.
After using a lot of task tracking software, I have finally settled on Org. I add tasks to various Org files, and schedule them so that the tasks show up in my Agenda view. Originally, I was resistant to the idea of clocking in and clocking out to track the time, but I reached a point in my quest for productivity, that if I want to improve on something, I need to measure it.
This is working great as a daily TODO list, and I have a rough overview of my day, and week in this manner using the Agenda view. Having many Org files is not a problem, as the Agenda view allows me to easily jump to the task by simply hitting TAB.
Extended Note Taking
All my project and task notes are stored in various Org files. For some projects, I’ve been gradually adding to its notes file for years. This allows me to glance through the entire history of the project and its evolution across multiple versions.
While writing code or performing some debugging or maintenance task, we need a rough working area where we can save snippets of code, data, configuration and general brain-dump notes so that we can pick up where we left off after we’ve context-switched back from the latest interrupt.
Org Babel is particularly suited to this task of storing code snippets in a multitude of languages. I haven’t yet explored the literate programming capabilities in which Org can be a lightweight Jupyter Notebook. Python seems to be well supported, but my favourite languages are not, unfortunately.
What about advanced Zettelkasten exo-brain software?
For now, I don’t need advanced functionality. The information I am saving is not that complicated, so I’ll stick with the existing setup until I hit its limits.
Bibliography management, Bookmarking
Whenever, I come across a good resource like an web article, academic paper, text book, I store it in Zotero. After more than two years of doing this semi-regularly, I’ve academically tsundoku’d myself. I shake off the mild disappointment, every time I share relevant literature for anyone looking for it from my curated collection. I guess, it is useful, for that at least.
I used to hit “Add to Bookmarks” in the browser, but the browser search bars are more interested in taking the data you type and giving it to a search engine rather than providing even the most rudimentary local search functionality based on your visited webpages and bookmarks. This is why I felt that I cannot rely on browser bookmarks, and went with heavyweight Bibliography Management software.
Clipboard Management
In more than 10 years of professional computer usage, I am embarrassed to say, that I have not used a Clipboard manager until only about a year ago.
Find a Clipboard manager that you like and use it. It’s supercharges your copy/paste skills.
At work, I use Maccy which works well enough. I haven’t found a portable Clipboard manager that works across all my OSes (OpenBSD Desktop and NixOS Laptop), so would appreciate any recommendations in this area.
Summary
My information is managed with a combination of Org, Fossil Wiki, TreeSheets, Zotero, Clipboard Manager and the occasional scribble on chequered paper.
This complicated “system” is working well enough, and it allows me to be entirely local and self-sufficient with no external dependencies.
Thanks for reading. I would like to hear what PIM system works for you.
Send me an email or toot at me on @samebchase@mastodon.social!