Usefull advice organization!

September 8, 2005 6:13 AM

What are some interesting and creative ways of compiling various bits of advice, information, quotes, etc. into something that can be easily recalled later?

I have a tendency to highlight text out of a book that I’d like to remember, but aside from shuffling through stacks and stacks of books, there’s no simple way of recalling that information later. I also tend to find advice on various websites, magazines, movies, etc. that go forgotten unless written down.

Right now I throw the text into a Word document and save it for later, but it becomes so unorganized that it’s a pain to read and get anything useful out of.

So I ask: what are some interesting and creative ways of compiling these bits of information into a central, organized location, to be recalled at a later time?

P.S. handwriting is poor, so I’d prefer something on the computer.

posted by nitsuj to grab bag (9 comments total)

I use Treepad for that. It works great except that it's stuck on my computer instead of the web.

You could also try a wiki or use del.icio.us to tag your quotes. Or make yourself a simple blog just for quotes.
posted by callmejay at 6:34 AM on September 8, 2005

Oh! Oh! I have the perfect solution. I've been using a Tiddlywiki, specifically GTD Tiddlywiki for a while now, and recommend it. I've got about 20 pages for different things -- books to read, books I've read, gifts to buy for people, quotes, ideas for stories, projects, addresses, etc.

It's really a very snazzy little "program". Really it's just a web page that you save on your desktop, and it edits just like a wiki, with automatic formatting and all. It saves itself every time you make a change.

If you want to synchronize it between computers, just right click on the file and send it to yourself as an e-mail attachment once you're done.

If you want a truly decentralized answer, go with a true wiki (I use pmWiki for no particular reason), or a CMS (I use Etomite because it's the simplest one I could find that lets you use a true directory structure to organize things).
posted by Hildago at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2005

I use Info Select for this - it's great at it. It does cost money, though.
posted by rfs at 9:10 AM on September 8, 2005

Todd Dominey has a pretty good list of stuff on his blog, some of which might help. He was looking for customer management software, but some of the titles he discovered (Voodoo Pad, StickyBrain, Hog Bay Notebook) would probably serve you well. There are a few which allow the organisation of info in a visual format, like in charts or thinkmaps rather than as text - useful for people who find text lists not that conducive to recall.
posted by BorgLove at 9:47 AM on September 8, 2005

I use Keynote (free, Open Source) for keeping all kinds of information organized (research notes, poems, random stuff I had kept in scattered text files before etc. etc.) and a few web-based applications to keep track of bookmarks, quotes and music I'm listening to.

Some people would probably advocate a solution that gathers all data in one place, but I just haven't found a tool/app/method that accounts for such a wide range of information.

For starters, I'd say go with either a lightweight (!) Wiki, as suggested, or a tree-based PIM, take your time to gather all the information you'd like to keep track of and make it easy to enter more data as you go along (e.g. having dozens of categories and sub-topics might become confusing, dumping everything in one place will be just like that big Word file).

PS. I've found that if I come across something interesting in a book I'm reading, sometimes a Google search will turn up the quote online, because someone somewhere found it interesting too and transcribed it. Or, I hear something on the radio or read something in the papers, chances are Wikipedia has more information or Google spits out useful links, which can then be bookmarked in del.icio.us. or collected in your PIM, all without your ever having to type things up.
posted by mumble at 10:25 AM on September 8, 2005

DevonThink Pro if you're on a Mac. If you're not a Mac, switch... for DevonThink.

Highlight text in Safari or other apps, right click, choose "Make Note" and boom, it's done. There are also widgets to do this.

It can store text, pdfs, movie clips, and various other documents. And it can instantly search these documents, cross reference them, and do other things. It's awesome. Easily the best application I've ever found for a writer.

I do all my writing in it (I write in snippets or unrelated paragraphs) and then export when the piece is done to add special formatting should I need it, prior to printing.

If you're looking for something much less powerful (but still very useful) that's free, try Notational Velocity.
posted by dobbs at 11:05 AM on September 8, 2005

Oops, Devon link shoulda been here.
posted by dobbs at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2005

I also love DevonThink, though I work the other way around -- I work on a writing project in a text editor or Word, and then shove all the drafts, versions, and abstracts into DevonThink at irregular intervals. Papers by other people, if available in PDF or text, go in too, as do useful websites and anything else. I hardly ever write anything directly in the program and still use it all the time. The incredibly rapid searching and cross-referencing functions are amazing. It's particularly super for finding old citations. (I'm somehow fundamentally incapable of being a good user of bibliography programs like EndNote.)

For writing directly in an information manager, I like wikis -- they have automatic versioning control, and they're also perfect for collaborating, and can be available over the Internet. Now, if only someone could make a perfect hybrid of DevonThink and MediaWiki, I might die of joy.
posted by redfoxtail at 12:39 PM on September 8, 2005

redfoxtail, I write directly in it because I mostly write episodic things like screenplays. I make each scene its own entry and can drag and drop to reorder at will without having to select text. Very handy.
posted by dobbs at 3:08 PM on September 8, 2005