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Reducing my PIM/Knowledge/Writing Tools
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Posted by Ike Washington
Apr 2, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Kyle
Thanks for responding here. My apologies. I should have contacted you first before shooting off here.
Yesterday something did go wrong. I reinstalled UR today and it’s been fine so far. It may have been that I had too many applications running. I tend to do this.
Playing around with UR, I can see why it’s popular with many of the forum regulars. I started off with KeyNote and then Treepad and then Ecco and then back and forth. So UR’s set up is familiar. It’s a great outliner. I like its hoist and cloning facilities. I wish its keywords worked more like EverNote’s categories. And I’d like to be able to see the contents of more than one tab at a time. I should take this up with you at the UR forum.
Thanks too for your offer of an extension to the eval period.
My point was that it might be an idea for developers to allow repeat evaluations as a matter of course. After all, it’s not just the software that’s evolving. I often try software out for one purpose, reject it because it doesn’t quite work for that purpose, then find myself coming back because I want to use it, as my digital lifestyle becomes ever more complex, for some other purpose altogether. Developers generally grant me an extension. But if I knew this from the start, that, say, three months after the end of the evaluation I’ll be able to have another go, I’d be much more likely to keep your forum bookmarked, keep an interest going in your software even though your software’s gone from my computer.
Best
Ike
Posted by Jack Crawford
Apr 3, 2007 at 01:44 AM
I’ve found that OneNote 2007 satisfies my general PIM needs at the moment - it’s especially powerful and flexible in sucking in data from all sorts of programs. I’m not a particular fan of Outlook or IE7 but the one button access in and out of ON is hard to beat.
I’m much less satisfied with my writing environment. I need business rather than academic functionality so I use a mixture of project management tools and the Notemap/Word combo for longer documents. I’d like to use Brainstorm but really need an editable overview, as well as some basic formatting.
Jack
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Apr 3, 2007 at 08:13 AM
Jack Crawford wrote:
>I’m much less satisfied with my writing environment. I need business rather
>than academic functionality so I use a mixture of project management tools and the
>Notemap/Word combo for longer documents. I’d like to use Brainstorm but really need
>an editable overview, as well as some basic formatting.
Our needs are quite similar, with the exception of formatting, but I’ve managed to get along with Brainstorm; I admit that for me it’s quite an emotional issue: the plain text interface helps me focus (I haven’t been as productive since using WordPerfect 5 for DOS) while the ability to Throw copies of ideas elsewhere while writing, to consider later, helps me maintain the momentum.
After reading so much about Whiz Folders as a writing environment I’ve been tempted to try it out. However, it’s a whole new different approach and I’ll probably restrain from it for the moment.
The months away from non-professional internet use helped me curb my CRIMP habits. They also helped me realise a key issue in my long search for the holy PIM grail, namely that one’s consistent use of a tool makes that tool ever more useful. Knowledge workers are the modern equivalent of craftsmen and as craftsmen we need to invest time in becoming skilled in our tools.
This doesn’t mean that the right choice of tool doesn’t impact productivity, nor that one shouldn’t include issues such as company longevity in their criteria. But as any Zoot user seems to assert, the more you use it, the better it becomes.
alx
Posted by Graham Rhind
Apr 3, 2007 at 08:54 AM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
They also helped me realise a key issue in my long search for the holy PIM
>grail, namely that one’s consistent use of a tool makes that tool ever more useful.
I agree completely. I have a terrible tendency to keep shifting from program to program as each one develops and leap-frogs another in its abilities, and it leads to disorganisation and far too much work. If I could force myself to stick to one program for n months or years, I’d probably find I would achieve a great deal more, even though the program concerned didn’t do all I required of it.
Graham
Posted by Ike Washington
Apr 3, 2007 at 11:54 AM
Graham, Alexander
I’m not sure that jumping from one program to another is just a bad case of CRIMP or an act of self-indulgence or procrastination or an ultimately frivolous delight in novelty etc. It may be these things. But it must also have something to do with the huge changes in tech that we’ve all experienced in the last couple of decades.
While most of us developed into knowledge workers in one culture, we now find ourselves in another culture altogether. We play a game of catch up. As we climb up to the next tech level, we find new levels appearing ahead of us. Hardware and software, both outstrip wetware.
So, 15 years ago, I researched and wrote articles using pen and paper. Sure, I messed around with different pens, different notebooks. But I didn’t have to think too much about how I was going to go about my work. I’d grown up in a pen and ink culture. I was educated into a particular tradition of scholarship which went back, I suppose, to the early universities, to Plato’s Academy etc.
Today, it’s all very well to talk about sticking to your craft, but, actually, we don’t have any tradition of digital craftsmanship. Not only do I have to figure out what it is I need from the software, but both my needs and the software and the hardware continually change.
So, we spend so much time in these forums. So, we spend too much time installing and uninstalling software. Something similar, though not as dramatic, must have happened - oh, the arguments about which parchment to use - after the introduction of the moveable type printing press in the 1450s…
Sadly, software that does the job today may be inadequate tomorrow. Which is why I’m ready to chop and change software, won’t let myself become too enamoured with any one transcendental, meta application.
Ike
Graham Rhind wrote:
>Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>They also helped me realise a key issue in my long search
>for the holy PIM
>>grail, namely that one’s consistent use of a tool makes that tool
>ever more useful.
>
>I agree completely. I have a terrible tendency to keep shifting
>from program to program as each one develops and leap-frogs another in its abilities,
>and it leads to disorganisation and far too much work. If I could force myself to stick
>to one program for n months or years, I’d probably find I would achieve a great deal
>more, even though the program concerned didn’t do all I required of it.
>
>Graham