Over the course of a day I process a lot of URLs. Some of them are wishlists for the future (films I want to see, books I want to read, apps I want to install), some of them are things I need to do now (people I need to contact, things I need to research, stuff I need to buy), and others are things I can't do on my phone but need to do when I get back to my computer. There are also a lot of ways to process these links: bookmark manager like Pinboard.in, todolist like 2Do or Todoist, outliner like Dynalist, or even a database like Airtable. Or even more flexible and mixed apps like Trello. I'm just not happy with any of these options. I thought I'd post here to see if any of you CRIMPers have a similar problem and how you've solved it?

I think part of the issue for me is that I want both a short term solution (tasks that require action that day), an intermediate solution (a holding place for URLs until I decide what to do with them), as well as a long term solution (lists that I can reference at some future date when I'm looking for something to read or watch). Most of the solutions I have are better for one of these scenarios than another. I also want something that is rather minimalist (in the aesthetic design) and works across multiple platforms.

I was ready to answer with "Devon Think" until you mentioned availability for multiple platforms.

You can use the read later list now in or available as plugin for most browsers for short term items and for the long term ones can be saved into Evernote.

Evernote is a perfect example of an app that’s great for long term storage but not very useful as a short term solution.

I think something like raindrop.io would be perfect if it was better implemented …

I don't know of a system that can guess if you want to flag something as short, medium, or long term. A system that uses tags might help. I use Pocket for capturing URLs. It has several capture modes -- bookmarklets for Safari or Chrome; desktop and Mobile apps; importers from Delicious or Instapaper; "Pocket" buttons on sites like The Browser, etc. In the Pocket web view or an app you can flag a clipping as Favorite or Archive, in addition to the tagging.

Instapaper is another option.

@Luhmann

I think the issue here is whether you want to capture first and make a decision about the value (short, medium, or long-term) of the link later, or the other way round, decide the value, and then put it in the right place.

The former requires a single catch-all cross platform in-box (which what you seem to ask about), and then a subsequent action (later) to classify them. I tried this but it didn't work for me because it just creates workload for the future and I never have enough time to go back and sort through it all. The other problem is that important or urgent links get lost among masses of less important ones.

The second option (my current practice) is that I make a decision about the value of the link immediately, and then I place it in its most appropriate location (i.e. there isn't a single cross-platform solution for it).

If it requires immediate attention or very soon, I use the "Clip to WorkFlowy" Chrome extension (which is my very first icon right next to the URL address box in Chrome) and then paste it straight into WorkFlowy in the appropriate "category" (hierarchical level), which is a tab that's always open (and set to open automatically upon launching Chrome on all my machines). This takes three clicks, so it's fairly painless.

In WorkFlowy I have the following hierarchies:

For urgent stuff:

Do > Today > Work
Do > Today > Home

For less urgent stuff (where "Next" means any time in the near future):

Do > Next > Work
Do > Next > Home

This is cross-platform insofar as it works on desktop and mobile platforms that allow you to to use Chrome with extensions. I only use this on my Windows and Chrome OS systems. But it's at least accessible on mobile platforms.

If the above is not available (i.e. I'm using an iOS device or an Android tablet), then I just email links to myself, and do the above later.

If an online article needs longer-term archiving, then I just save it as PDF directly into Google Drive into the appropriate folder. This is properly cross-platform.

And finally, if something requires integration into my very long-term knowledge base, then it gets its own ConnectedText "topic" (wiki page); but this is on a single Windows laptop, so not cross-platform.

So for me it's all about making the decision first (how important or urgent the link is), and then it gets filed accordingly. This system has evolved through many years or trial and error solutions (the main change was that Google Drive has replaced Surfulater for me, due to it being cross-platform and also because online backup of Surfulater files takes up too much bandwidth, as it resaves the entire multiple Gigabyte database file, even if you've just added one link).

"If the above is not available (i.e. I’m using an iOS device or an Android tablet), then I just email links to myself, and do the above later."

Yeah, I'd like to do something similar in Dynalist. But neither is really good enough for me just yet... Hopefully someday.

P.S. The advantage of using the aforementioned tools and 'system' is that there are many options for cross-linking items (to bridge the short, medium, long-term classification categories and software silos), regardless where they reside, e.g. reciprocal links between WorkFlowy and CT items, or from WorkFlowy and CT to Google Drive items.

Using Chrome as a cross-platform browser is also a key part of this system, with the WorkFlowy tab open automatically on all machines, and the Chrome extensions and browsing history synced across all devices, as well as easy access to Google Drive (sync client also installed on Windows, so all my Google Drive items are directly accessible from my Windows file manager (Directory Opus)).

Luhmann wrote:

Yeah, I'd like to do something similar in Dynalist. But neither is
really good enough for me just yet... Hopefully someday.

Seriously, check out the “Clip to WorkFlowy” Chrome extension and see if there is something like that available for Dynalist.

In fact the various Chrome extensions and Stylish or Stylus CSS scripts that customise my WorkFlowy experience (to add colour coding to tags and font colours to lines, to shorten URLs, and especially “Clip to WorkFlowy”) are the main reason I'm sticking with WorkFlowy. These are more important to me than anything extra that Dynalist offers.

Chrome extensions don't work on iOS.

Luhmann wrote:

Chrome extensions don't work on iOS.

Neither do I work on iOS :)

As I said, I just email links to myself. I only use an iPod Touch, and it's for reading in confined spaces or public transport.

I have abandoned the iPad a long time ago in favour of Chromebook convertibles, so I can have the same size as an iPad (e.g. Asus Chromebook Flip) but with a real keyboard and full Chrome browser with all the extensions and excellent integration with Google Drive and other Google services, and also running Android. If there was an Android alternative to the iPod Touch, I would abandon iOS instantly. But that's just me and my grudge against Apple. :)

What I'm saying is that at the heart of developing these kinds of cross-platform solutions there is also a decision as to which platform one wants to make the central one and where things are heading (for you personally). While I continue to use Windows, things are definitely heading towards the Google universe for me, and if there was an online version of ConnectedText, there would be few reasons for me to stick with Windows even.

What I'd like is something very much like what you described, but which didn't entail emailing things to myself ;-)

Actually, if Taskade updated their Chrome and iOS extensions so you could easily clip URLs to various lists, that would be perfect.

https://simplenote.com/

www.dropbox.com/paper

Acquired, dormant development, open sourced:

https://paper.dropbox.com/hackpad/

Here is a good list of apps in the category that I’m talking about, although still haven’t found one I really like (for this purpose):

https://serafin.io/bookmark-managers/

In MS Word online version, can use MS OneDrive free cloud or even Dropbox. It's a bit tricky to get to show dropbox in Word online, but eventually it shows up.

It may not be an obvious choice, and might be more expensive a solution than you want, but I think TheBrain could handle this. You can drag URLs directly into the Plex and categorize them in a number of ways. You can keep your list in sync among Windows, Mac and iOS.

For what it's worth.

Steve Z.

Thanks everyone. This conversation really helped me think through exactly what I needed. In the end I found something that works really well for me: Todoist.

I don't use Todoist as a to-do list (I use 2Do for that) so I will be only using it for this purpose, and the free version of the app has more than enough features for me.

It supports Markdown formatted links, just like Dynalist, so it is easy to move things between the two.

It supports multiple means of capturing links including an excellent iOS and Chrome extensions.

Unlike Dynalist it captures links directly as Markdown and can send incoming links to any list (not just an inbox)

Since it is a task manager, it works great for different time frames since items can be checked off when completed, or can be saved in lists for "someday"

In short, it covers nearly all the requirements I was looking for.

Todoist is a very useful outliner, it must be said, with fantastic cross-platform support.

Otherwise I'd go with washere's recommended simplenote, or else with Joplin, both of which have full cross-platform support and are very easy to use.

I tried out Todoist and saw it was very good at making lists, but... outlines?

Yup, dual outlines, in fact. It's a dual-pane app that can "fold" the contents of the left-hand navigation pane AND the right-hand "editor" pane. It supports markdown, and you can switch off the checkboxes that usually appear before each item in the editor by prefacing the item with a symbol (can't remember what it is, off-hand). So yes, you can use Todoist as a very effective, very powerful outliner. With to-dos built in if you need them.

Ah, that explains what I saw - lists. All my outlines, for decades now, have been multi-layered. Todoist is not useful for that.

Looks like I'm late to this party but did not see these two mentioned:

Diigo and Moo.do.

Diigo seems really good for what I think you are looking for - it started as a bookmark manager and you can tag your bookmarks and arrange them in outlines. It even has a "read later" button/bucket. And ios and android apps.

But if you need more flexibility, you might check out moo.do. You can do mail-in by using their gmail plugin. It has excellent ios and android support. And it is very flexible.

Lately, I find that when I want to do something that is already well-defined like GTD or bookmarking or single-pane outlining, there are some obvious choices. But when I want to do something unusual that doesn't fit neatly in a predefined crimp category, often I end up with Moo.do. (most recent example: I needed to copy a list of deadlines from a proprietary corporate database into my google calendar. Guess what can do that? Moo.do. I can paste in a list and tell it to add each to my google calendar. I found no other tool that could do it).

Luhmann wrote:

Evernote is a perfect example of an app that’s great for long term
storage but not very useful as a short term solution.

I think something like raindrop.io would be perfect if it was better
implemented …

I had not seen raindrop before this post; just checked it out. It looks really nice for what it is. Is there something specific that doesn't work with the implementation?