[GTALUG] information storage ideas

[Giles Orr]

On Tue, 8 Dec 2020 at 12:41, o1bigtenor via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
> I tend to work on quite a number of different things  if not at the
> same time then in
> quite short order. So far most projects will get some notes or phone
> call references
> or other information jotted down on paper. Over time this means that I
> all too often
> tend to redo things - - - sometimes to improvement but sometimes I
> don't know where
> the previous work is so I'm looking or I'm redoing.
>
> So I'm looking at collecting things like contact information (and
> their value/area etc etc),
> project ideas, info sources, project planning, project design
> parameters, project
> components all of which hopefully results in some in the end.
>
> Have been trying to use taskwarrior and its a decent reminder system but the
> storage of all the other 'stuff' isn't there. Been trying to just save
> things into a folder
> (that's not so useful when information is applicable to multiple projects).
>
> Has anyone found a 'reasonable' system that would effect this less than simple
> 'idea'?

If you're a Vim user, I highly recommend vimwiki:
https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki .  I live and die by NeoVim, and
spend every day with multiple sessions open across multiple machines.
I store my vimwiki in git, which allows me to sync it across all those
machines while managing potential data collisions.  I use a number of
Vim plugins, but vimwiki is probably the one I use the most ... unless
you count gitgutter.  :-)

If you're not a Vim user, I imagine there's an equivalent for Emacs.
If not Emacs, there are many, many personal wikis.  I've used and
liked the JavaScript-and-browser-based Tiddlywiki (although I haven't
touched it in years, so not sure of its current status -
https://tiddlywiki.com/ ).  It had the interesting property of all
being stored entirely in one file, but easily searchable and
displaying in bite-sized chunks as if it were many wiki pages.

Using a wiki and its associated mark-up language and commands takes
some time to adjust to, but it sounds like a good way to address the
problem you're outlining so it would probably be worth it?  And while
git is annoying, it's a great way to sync data across machines without
data collisions.

I hope this helps.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com