Looking for PIM / Thesis Writing Software for the PC

Posted by Edwin Yip
Oct 23, 2009 at 03:59 AM

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the detailed explanation, I’m glad that I asked this question, now I know the overall process of how you capture, refine, organize and finalize your ideas, It helps a lot to my project indeed :)

—
Edwin Yip
Writing Outliner - Turn Microsoft Word into an all-in-one writing software.
http://WritingOutliner.com

Peter wrote:
>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! ;)
>