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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-06-2015, 07:59 AM
Problem: I have a lot of things strewn around on my computer, my cloud storage, and my phone. I also write a lot of stuff in notepads (ink and paper).
These things are related to my 'general research', which includes everything from entrepreneurship, travel, women, philosophy, politics, science, culture etc etc.
The types of things are:
- Browser bookmarks on laptop (firefox)
- An ad-hoc directory structure in dropbox, which branches by category (e.g. travel - japan - 20xx or self improvement - goals)
-- Includes a variety of file types through this directory structure, including:
---- excel files (used where appropriate, for plans etc),
---- notepad files (simple, load fast)
---- word files, when the detail and heading hierarchy must be more complicated.
---- website link files (.url extention I think, basically a file version of a bookmark)
---- other files which fit into that hierachy such as travel photos/movies, inspirational pictures etc, misc scanned pdfs/images etc
-- Includes a variety of file purposes. E.g. goal setting, plans, records, ideas.
- Notepad app/widgets on my phone
-- Contain their own text files, usually ideas I jot down when I only have my phone with me
- Browser bookmarks on phone
- Written notes on paper. Yes, an organizational nightmare, but paper and pen has far fewer ways to irritate you than a computer, and just feels better and faster for recording ideas.
Does anyone have any ideas as to how to better integrate and smoothly organize or centralize this whole setup?
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-06-2015, 08:06 AM
What about Evernote?
For example, you can take a photo of your hand-written notes and drop it into Evernote.
See an article that you want to read later? Drop it into Evernote.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-06-2015, 08:59 AM
I use Google for everything (not for work stuff).
I use
Drive for notes I want to save, spreadsheets, files I want to keep.
I use
Keep for grocery lists, to do lists, a guitar tab I want to learn, anything that pops into my mind. Reminder to look up something or document something later on my computer to my Drive account.
I use
Calendar for events and some to do things.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-06-2015, 01:42 PM
Mindmaps..
I use them for breaking down concepts for learning, to brainstorming, to organizing to research.
I tend to use them as a dashboard of sorts where I will access other files like spreadsheets, videos, pdfs, etc...
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-11-2015, 09:49 AM
Quote: (03-06-2015 01:42 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:
Mindmaps..
I use them for breaking down concepts for learning, to brainstorming, to organizing to research.
I tend to use them as a dashboard of sorts where I will access other files like spreadsheets, videos, pdfs, etc...
which program do you use? Most I tried were clunky
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-11-2015, 07:58 PM
Trello FTW.
I put links to files inside of my notes with it, pictures as markers on top of the notes and sort from newest to oldest in lists.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
03-11-2015, 10:09 PM
I've found Pocket to be indispensable for saving interesting articles and links. It's a browser plugin and an app.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
09-05-2015, 11:09 AM
Orgmode is a big deal among the geeks. It is very powerful but the downside is that it uses plain text format. It also runs in Emacs so you need to familiarize yourself with emacs as well. It is designed with GTD in mind.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
09-05-2015, 09:23 PM
OneNote. Has changed my life.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
09-05-2015, 10:56 PM
I second Evernote - their browser plug in is useful too. Also one note isn't bad either. For storage though, I would avoid Dropbox for security reasons; Microsoft OneDrive is much better. Google drive is secure enough, but they actually read your data (machines do, anyway) and spam/market you accordingly.
Pocket is great too, but not sure of the limitations of the free version. My trial of the pro version just expired. This feature is on the iPhone as "read it later" and I think it's actually the same company.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
09-06-2015, 10:28 AM
as others have said, Evernote. I use Evernote to organize my personal thoughts (personal as well as business ideas). For more "official" ideas for collaboration with business partners we use Google Drive. I prefer not to use physical paper notes since they get lost easily and are difficult to organize.
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How to organize your ideas on computer
09-07-2015, 04:17 AM
I'm gonna give one of these ideas a go.
My trusty bound notebook and pen go everywhere with me; it is my own bible.
I've never managed to make the leap to digital. I've often thought it's due to the lack of physical connection that bringing a pen to paper gives. It could just be a generational thing...being born in the early 80s, computers didn't really become that useful to me till well into my teenage years.