Looking for PIM / Thesis Writing Software for the PC

Posted by Peter
Oct 21, 2009 at 09:21 PM

No worries Edwin, and happy to hear that you find it useful.

To answer your (not dumb) question: In the process of brainstorming and catching ideas I generally open a new doc and try to stick with it. However, sometimes the ideas get too cluttered, or they branch off and start to develop into something distinctly different. That is when I like to have the experience of a clean slate. Sometimes I even create one or two quick notepad txt files because it’s so much simpler than starting up Word. Initially I save these new files on the desktop rather down in some folder under MyDocs because I’m not sure how they will all fit together or how I want to categorize them. Then, over the course of several days or sometimes weeks, I go back through these docs and ‘weed’ them and cleaning them off my desktop. Sometimes this involves cutting and pasting from several into one and then deleting the originals. Sometimes this involves collecting several doc/txt files together under a new theme and then creating a new folder with that theme’s name. Sometimes I try to put the desktop files into preexisting folders under MyDocs. Sometimes I make the new folders a subfolder of a preexisting folder under MyDoc. The upside of this workflow is the level of spontaneity it allows and the on-the-fly recording of ideas. The downside is the clutter and often disorder.

I hope this answers your (not dumb) question and good luck with your project! ;)

Edwin wrote:
>Hi Peter,
> >Your work flow descriptions are so helpful to my Word addin project! Thank
>you so much!
> >Maybe this is a dump question, but may I ask, by “creating new drafts
>every week or so and end up with loads of file versions scattered across multiple
>folders”, do you mean that it is a consequence of that fact that you have to save
>previous versions the files? Thank you.
> >—
>Writing Outliner - Word addin for
>writers.
>http://WritingOutliner.com