How can I consolidate info (notes, to-dos, lists...) from multiple apps?
September 3, 2020 4:12 PM Subscribe
Over the years, I've gathered information (to-dos, notes, links to articles to read, reference material, ideas, lists of movies to see...) in many places, including Trello, Evernote, Google Keep, Todoist, Pinboard, Twitter bookmarks, Facebook saved posts, emails, Google Drive, phone screenshots, and papers/binders (eek). How on earth can I consolidate this (manually)? (And what tool might feel the most like an actual website, with pages, menus, submenus, etc.?)
If you are using a Mac, DEVONthink is the answer. It's a long-established program with a large community, so there are import tools for lots of services. It can also handle RSS, and OCR photos. I just did a brief search for example post, see here. It has an excellent search and built-in AI that can auto-sort and/or find related items, which is incredibly useful and unlike any other program that I'm familiar with.
posted by ajr at 4:28 PM on September 3, 2020
posted by ajr at 4:28 PM on September 3, 2020
I'm obsessed with Notion. Honestly it has been almost as helpful as medication in managing my ADHD - beforehand I was using like 5 different calendars and to-do list apps and random pieces of paper and email drafts etc.
You would create a "workspace," which kind of looks like a web page or desktop, and then you can add a menu of pages, sub-pages, etc. to the workspace, as many as you need to categorize things. Pages can be whatever you want, basically - a place to write notes, a photo gallery, a bookmarks app, a kanban board, a calendar, a database that you can link to pull data from other pages - it's pretty much limitless.
Not sure about automatically pulling in stuff from Trello, Todoist, or whatever - I started from scratch with one "Weekly to-do list" page organized in my own idiosyncratic way ("Today" in large text in the middle, upcoming days to the right, ongoing/long term stuff to the left) and then built up from there. Happy to answer any questions via DM!
posted by sparkling at 4:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
You would create a "workspace," which kind of looks like a web page or desktop, and then you can add a menu of pages, sub-pages, etc. to the workspace, as many as you need to categorize things. Pages can be whatever you want, basically - a place to write notes, a photo gallery, a bookmarks app, a kanban board, a calendar, a database that you can link to pull data from other pages - it's pretty much limitless.
Not sure about automatically pulling in stuff from Trello, Todoist, or whatever - I started from scratch with one "Weekly to-do list" page organized in my own idiosyncratic way ("Today" in large text in the middle, upcoming days to the right, ongoing/long term stuff to the left) and then built up from there. Happy to answer any questions via DM!
posted by sparkling at 4:57 PM on September 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Which one is not as important as doing it and keeping the habit. Something that can be fed automatically is ideal.
I feed a lot of stuff to Pinboard as long as it is a webpage. I don't keep notes in there much, and prefer Google Keep for those since it has checkbox functions. For your favorites here, you have an rss feed (go to your favorites page and find the icon right above Posts (956) or whatever you number is). I have that rss feed automatically create a bookmark in Pinboard using IFTTT. Pinboard can handle emails, too.
OneNote is another powerful tool since it can hold pictures and text. It has checkboxes, search, notebooks with subsections and those can hold other subsections.
posted by soelo at 6:04 PM on September 3, 2020
I feed a lot of stuff to Pinboard as long as it is a webpage. I don't keep notes in there much, and prefer Google Keep for those since it has checkbox functions. For your favorites here, you have an rss feed (go to your favorites page and find the icon right above Posts (956) or whatever you number is). I have that rss feed automatically create a bookmark in Pinboard using IFTTT. Pinboard can handle emails, too.
OneNote is another powerful tool since it can hold pictures and text. It has checkboxes, search, notebooks with subsections and those can hold other subsections.
posted by soelo at 6:04 PM on September 3, 2020
So I recently went through this process as well. I'm kind of a sucker for a new organizational method - i've tried them all, notion most recently, roam, obsidian, Zettelkasten, trello, etc etc etc. I really enjoy the process and have some neurodivergent quirks that make it a satisfying hyper focus task. I think I have found my EndGame though, which is bittersweet.
The method I settled on is called PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) and it is tool agnostic. So basically you will end up reorganizing (and mostly archiving) a lot of your existing pieces of info, and you will spend some small amount of effort enforcing alignment across platforms at the start, but beyond that you won't spend (much) energy on it.
Here's the introduction to the method. The rest of the series requires a subscription to access, but if you are really interested, memail me.
The method is tool agnostic. It just so happens that I have implemented using my mac's filesystem, Evernote, and Todoist (w/ 2way GCal integration which feeds iCal), with a very small sprinkling of habits from GTD (e.g. weekly review / trigger list) mixed in. But it works regardless - you aren't designing your system for a given tool, with that tool's pros and limitations, but rather for your own ease and utility.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:23 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
The method I settled on is called PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) and it is tool agnostic. So basically you will end up reorganizing (and mostly archiving) a lot of your existing pieces of info, and you will spend some small amount of effort enforcing alignment across platforms at the start, but beyond that you won't spend (much) energy on it.
Here's the introduction to the method. The rest of the series requires a subscription to access, but if you are really interested, memail me.
The method is tool agnostic. It just so happens that I have implemented using my mac's filesystem, Evernote, and Todoist (w/ 2way GCal integration which feeds iCal), with a very small sprinkling of habits from GTD (e.g. weekly review / trigger list) mixed in. But it works regardless - you aren't designing your system for a given tool, with that tool's pros and limitations, but rather for your own ease and utility.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:23 AM on September 4, 2020 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by trillian at 4:18 PM on September 3, 2020