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OmniOutliner as a Daily Jounal
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Posted by Drewster
Mar 25, 2019 at 12:18 PM
I realise there is a lot of talk around cloud outliners these days, notably Workflowy and Dynalist. I’m still a traditionalist though, and I like using locally installed software.
I’ve written up my use case for OmniOutliner as a daily journal in case anybody is interested.
https://www.canion.me/omnioutliner-as-a-daybook
Posted by Drewster
Mar 25, 2019 at 12:19 PM
Typo in the thread title - oops!
Posted by JakeBernsteinWA
Mar 25, 2019 at 02:39 PM
I found this really helpful, thank you for posting it!
I’m in the midst of actually *reading* GTD for the first time and finding a lot of very useful information in it. I’m very interested in using OmniOutliner as a “folder stack” like you’ve done. Is that file available generally or can you put it on your site for download?
Drewster wrote:
I realise there is a lot of talk around cloud outliners these days,
>notably Workflowy and Dynalist. I’m still a traditionalist though,
>and I like using locally installed software.
>
>I’ve written up my use case for OmniOutliner as a daily journal in
>case anybody is interested.
>
>https://www.canion.me/omnioutliner-as-a-daybook
Posted by Amontillado
Mar 25, 2019 at 06:16 PM
I used OO for a journal, at least briefly. I distrust special purpose apps - or, at least, I prefer using an app where my data is recoverable outside the application. OO didn’t bother me there because of OPML and other export options, but I wanted a more general purpose stash bin.
What I ended up with is a Devonthink database for my journal. A group for the year, a group for each month within the year, and a rich text file for the days I remember to make entries.
I made a template file, as a convenience, named %year%-%month%-%day% %weekday% journal.rtf.
Today’s file from that template ended up being automatically named 2019-3-25 Monday.rtf. Inside the rtf file, I’ve got headers for The day (personal ravings), Errands, and Work.
It’s somewhat industrial looking for a journal, but it lets me use tagging, searching, and I can store anything I want with the day. Pictures, audio, whatever.
You have to be a little careful with Devonthink’s automatic file naming. The date functions are permanent, but if you use the enclosing group name as part of a file name, the file will get a static name based on how it first appeared. If you drag it to a new group, the group portion of the displayed file name (not the actual file name) will change to reflect the new enclosing group.
Posted by Paul Korm
Mar 25, 2019 at 07:03 PM
Thank you @drewster—interesting post on your blog. I frequently use OO5 for capturing notes on iOS (with columns for metadata) that I want to import to Tinderbox. Your journaling idea would complement that use case, so I will give it a go.