Mind organizer

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Posted by pedrob
Jan 2, 2019 at 08:50 PM

Hi all,

I was wondering if there is any combination of software able to facilitate my daily job… I will welcome any idea.

My workflow is something like:

Begin loop

- read/reread some PDF or word docs, and some Excel files
- extract usefull information from those files for doing calculations and answer customers again, each read you discover something new that you need to process (tenths or hundreds of little details)
- create/modify doc files and Excel files based in findings of previous steps
- process feedback from colleagues, boss, customer,...

End loop

I process that that loop several times along four weeks to elaborate final versions of documents.

There are lots of intermediate versions of documents, and most of the times, you keep half of information in your mind… It’s very tired. Each new info will require changes in calculations or text…

Any idea?

Posted by Paul Korm
Jan 2, 2019 at 09:46 PM

@pedrob—welcome!

Can you share what the job is? And what documents are you required to produce? A little more context for the “workflow” might bring it into focus. It sounds like there’s a research process going on, with some intermediate experimentation and iteration.

Also, what platform do you work on / what OS? You don’t need suggestions for Windows if you work on Linux, or software for a laptop if you work on an iPad, for example.

Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 2, 2019 at 10:02 PM

Here is how this could be done using Chrome and Google Drive (provided you are allowed access to it and it’s not a problem to convert the .doc and .xls files to Google Docs and Sheets):

1. Open Google Doc or Sheet.

2. Open Google Keep in the side panel.

3. Extract info from doc or sheet and enter into Google Keep notes.

4. Create a new doc or sheet, open Google Keep in side panel, and use info to develop new doc / sheet.

It is also possible to select multiple Keep notes and save them into a single new Google Doc.

If it’s a PDF, you could use Kami (Chrome extension) to annotate it, and then export the annotations as a text file and paste it into a Google Doc. Alternatively, you could just have browser tab with Keep or the standalone Chrome app for Keep and copy and paste info directly from the PDF into Keep.

Alternatively, if you want to do this in Windows, and you want to start structuring the resulting document right away, you could use some outliner software (e.g. Scrivener, or Outline 4D, or OneNote or Whizfolders) to copy and paste the notes or snippets into a developing hierarchical outline, and then write it up from there. I would use at least two monitors for this (reading and annotating in one, pasting into the developing outline in the other).

If you’re adventurous, you could use ConnectedText for organising the whole process, using its clipboard capture utility to collect the notes, link to all the original documents, and then use CT’s outliner pane to organise the various notes into an outline, with links to the notes, for the final writing-up.

Posted by pedrob
Jan 3, 2019 at 12:21 AM

I work answering big request for proposals: proposal text, costing, presentations, Visio diagrams, ....

I work with MS Office in Windows.

Posted by Paul Korm
Jan 3, 2019 at 01:25 AM

Thank you—that’s helpful. Something along the lines of business development support.

Have you worked with an outliner app as a hub for the proposal response effort, track the tasks you need to address as you evaluate content for your RFP responses, link to documents you need, etc. Some options (frequently discussed in this forum, as well) are Dynalist, Workflowy, and Ginkgo, which is a different approach. You could also use OneNote, creating a OneNote notebook for each RPF response-drafting project. You could store all the documents in OneNote, track tasks, use sections for each draft version, etc., as well as create links between pages in the Notebook.

Personally, for this kind of work (which I do frequently) I find OneNote more useful than the outliners. It depends to an extent on how many bits and pieces of documents you need to juggle in creating your draft responses. I assume your responses need to conform to a templated table of contents and even styles. OneNote can help with that, too.

pedrob wrote:
I work answering big request for proposals: proposal text, costing,
>presentations, Visio diagrams, ....
> >I work with MS Office in Windows.

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