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Year end Outliner/PIM review/roll call
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Posted by Graham Rhind
Jan 8, 2016 at 11:54 AM
Like many others I’ve found a fairly stable batch of programs for information management which haven’t changed that much in 2015. I’m Windows only (and that won’t change), I avoid cloud-only solutions, and learned long ago not to try to find one program to do everything, and not to push programs I do use to do things they can’t do comfortably.
So it’s:
- OneNote for knowledge archiving
- ConnectedText for large interconnected data sets, such as glossaries, especially those to be uploaded as websites
- Personal Brain 6 only to hold my family tree and some customer data. The Brain 9 will have to be astonishing for me to upgrade
- GS-Base for structured information (but Visual Foxpro for true database management)
- Ariadne (5) for some notes that don’t seem to want to go elsewhere.
I’m using Workflowy just for a single project because of it’s easy filtering by tag, but I’m not overly impressed.
So that’s it. I reckon by the end of 2016 nothing would have come along to have changed this very much, but who knows?
Graham
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 8, 2016 at 01:16 PM
Graham Rhind wrote:
>I’m using Workflowy just for a single project because of it’s easy
>filtering by tag, but I’m not overly impressed.
Out of curiosity, what is it that you don’t like about it?
Posted by Graham Rhind
Jan 8, 2016 at 02:03 PM
Ah. Well.
First of all I avoid any cloud-only solutions. Workflowy has the advantage that it’s automatically synced across any device, but I’m never, ever, no way going to put any data of value into any product where the data storage isn’t under my control. And, as I live in an area with dodgy and slow internet connections (I have 6 connections from 5 different internet providers in 2 locations just to ensure 24 hour per day access) I don’t take permanent online access for granted.
Secondly, I don’t see any real advantages to it apart from the tagging. As I said, I use it in a very limited way for a single product because, at a glance, I can see who’s doing what, or what needs to be done for a particular release, or what is current. But if I wanted to use it beyond that I’d have to push it to do things it’s not good at (in my opinion). I read Frank Degenaar’s book from cover to cover but it didn’t fire up anything in me. The whole idea of, for example, creating tags for every day so that it can be used as a diary - madness. Like the bullet journal - great idea in some respects,. but “just write out the dates for every day in the coming month”, And then write them all again because there’s not enough space for the appointments. Then find you need to write an appointment for seven months ahead and rewrite everything .... what??? Ain’t nobody got time for that! I use a diary on paper - can’t be beaten. Hence my “not pushing programs I do use to do things they can’t do comfortably” comment.
I also find Workflowy cluttered, especially with all the tagging that goes with it. I don’t like the unstructured “just type” approach. One has to remember to always be tagging everything, then tagging again and again just to be sure. After a couple of pages I just didn’t feel in control of things any more. Remembering tags is almost as tiresome as remembering where you put information in a PIM which has a structured approach. Both cause problems for me. So I have to use Workflowy in a very limited way.
Just not my way of doing things, I suppose ...
Dr Andus wrote:
Graham Rhind wrote:
>>I’m using Workflowy just for a single project because of it’s easy
>>filtering by tag, but I’m not overly impressed.
>
>Out of curiosity, what is it that you don’t like about it?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 8, 2016 at 02:15 PM
Not a lot has changed with me. I’ve got three platforms to cover.
Windows PC at work:
- TheBrain 8 is my primary information/project manager
- OneNote is my tool for sharing information with colleagues
- Evernote for keeping key data sync’d across all devices
- Asana for team task management (new in 2015)
MacBook for personal:
- TheBrain 8
- Ulysses as primary writing tool
- Scrivener as writing tool for larger projects
- Alternote (as Evernote surrogate)
- DayOne for journaling
iPad Air:
- Ulysses
- DayOne
- Evernote
Looking forward to TheBrain 9 and Scrivener for iPad in 2016.
Steve Z.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 8, 2016 at 02:26 PM
Thanks for your thoughs on this, Graham.
Graham Rhind wrote:
>First of all I avoid any cloud-only solutions. Workflowy has the
>advantage that it’s automatically synced across any device, but I’m
>never, ever, no way going to put any data of value into any product
>where the data storage isn’t under my control.
It’s not the same thing as having full and total control, but there is a standalone Chrome app that works off-line, if you have patchy internet connection or go off-line for a while. Also, the Pro account does save a plain text copy of the entire outline and a back-up file to Dropbox every night.
>The whole idea of, for example, creating tags for every
>day so that it can be used as a diary - madness.
I agree, I don’t use it as a calendar either, though I do use date tags for finding date related todos.
>Remembering tags is almost as tiresome as
>remembering where you put information in a PIM which has a structured
>approach.
Yes, this is a limitation. I did suggest on their blog that an optional pop-up column with all the tags would be helpful to have, especially if you could sort it in various ways (alphabetically, by date created, most used, manual order etc.)