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TheBrain vs Evernote vs Personal Wiki
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Posted by thouqht
Sep 29, 2018 at 07:47 PM
tldr: If you had to organize a large body of content spanning many different topics and projects for easy reference in the creation of NEW content, what would you use?
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Hey friends,
For background, I previously posted this topic: https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8387/0/software-request-open-source-personal-content-repository
In that topic I decided to go with Org-Mode. I still AM going to go with org-mode as my main content CREATION tool (I’m currently spinning up my dream editor in Emacs), but I’m realizing that it’s quite challenging to use as a reference tool.
It’s simply too cumbersome to link and search files to create a truly useful web of connected knowledge. Yes you CAN do it, but it’s seeming to be far more clicks and configuration than it’s worth.
Let’s say over the course of the next few years I’ll produce hundreds of pieces of content (newsletters, outlines for videos, social media campaigns, etc.) many of them will be nested inside certain series, connected to various topics, attached to various projects. What would you recommend to STORE the content after I’ve created it?
The main goal would be to reference this content to build new connections and insights that would lead to the creation of even more content.
As a windows user, right now my best options seem to be:
- Evernote
- TheBrain
- A personal wiki
I’m already quite familiar with Evernote, and it would probably get the job done as a pure reference tool. However, it lacks the features for connectivity and discovery such as custom fields and backlinking.
This has me considering TheBrain or a personal wiki. The nice thing about a wiki is that it could be built with free and open software. The nice thing about TheBrain is that it seems pretty much designed for my purposes here and might even be able to replace my evernote usage.
I don’t have much experience with either of these options and so wanted to hear your thoughts, particularly from those of you who have experience with either. Of course, if there’s other options I haven’t considered, I’m all ears.
Posted by Paul Korm
Sep 29, 2018 at 11:40 PM
When that is my goal I use TheBrain. TheBrain excels at emergent structure—a topic worth exploring as you prepare your approach to this.
A personal wiki might eventually surpass TheBrain’s usefulness for you. BUT with a personal wiki you are going to end up doing a lot of fiddling around the edges to get the wiki up and running the way you want, so that you might spend as much or more time taking care of the infrastructure as working on your core tasks of building connections and insights.
Evernote I would never use for this purpose. It’s a bunch of buckets with no visual connection between the notes. Search in Evernote sucks. Not the right tool, in my opinion.
thouqht wrote:
>The main goal would be to reference this content to build new
>connections and insights that would lead to the creation of even more
>content.
>
>As a windows user, right now my best options seem to be:
>- Evernote
>- TheBrain
>- A personal wiki
Posted by thouqht
Sep 30, 2018 at 12:15 AM
Paul Korm wrote:
When that is my goal I use TheBrain. TheBrain excels at emergent
>structure—a topic worth exploring as you prepare your approach to
>this.
>
>A personal wiki might eventually surpass TheBrain’s usefulness for you.
>BUT with a personal wiki you are going to end up doing a lot of fiddling
>around the edges to get the wiki up and running the way you want, so
>that you might spend as much or more time taking care of the
>infrastructure as working on your core tasks of building connections and
>insights.
Thanks Paul, that’s useful. I definitely want to avoid having the management of my knowledge base become a major time sink. Setup, learning, and general maintenance is expected, but some systems just demand a bit too much. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you used TheBrain and how satisfied with it are you?
I’ve also just come across Zotero which seems quite interesting and powerful in it’s own right… I know it’s used primarily by academics for research, but it looks like it might have some useful capabilities.
Posted by Paul Korm
Sep 30, 2018 at 01:03 AM
I’ve used TheBrain on Windows and OS X/macOS for 13 years. Yes, very satisfied.
thouqht wrote:
>If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you
>used TheBrain and how satisfied with it are you?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 30, 2018 at 12:55 PM
The learning curve for TheBrain is way lower than it might seem just from looking at it. Also, the developer has so many instructional videos that it makes it a cinch to get the hang of it.
Steve Z.