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Making lists from URLs
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Posted by Luhmann
Mar 17, 2018 at 02:05 AM
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.
Posted by Lothar Scholz
Mar 17, 2018 at 04:04 AM
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.
Posted by Luhmann
Mar 17, 2018 at 07:40 AM
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 …
Posted by Paul Korm
Mar 17, 2018 at 09:47 AM
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.
Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 17, 2018 at 10:47 AM
@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).