How do I find the project info I need when I need it?

July 11, 2007 10:12 AM

How do you keep track of the project information you accumulate online and in paper?

How do you save all the information you run across that you'd like to use in the future?

For example, I have home decorating ideas, photography tips, knitting patterns, garden timelines and plant ideas...etc ad infinitum. I have piles of project ideas/info from newspapers, magazines, etc, and many more online. How do I keep track of it all so that next time I want to knit something, I can flip through it and find a pattern, or a great color to paint the living room?

The information I collect comes in forms of pictures online and paper, articles, a few typed lines of an idea, blog posts, etc. So far the ideas I have were to scan everything into my computer (time consuming), or print everything online onto paper and put it into binders.

Also, assuming you do save things on the computer...how do you collect the random pictures and couple of sentences...toss them all into a word document? As opposed to web pages/posts which you might save as a link? Or do you download those as well to prevent them disappearing into the ether?

How do you organize it all?

posted by sLevi to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

googlenotes works pretty well for me. you can sub divide into categories and clip directly from websites.
posted by nyu2 at 10:13 AM on July 11, 2007

-The ScrapBook extension for Firefox is great.
-Setting up a private Wiki for yourself (e.g. PBWiki) could work well
-Some people use OneNote, which is supposed to be good for this sort of thing.
-As nyu2 mentioned, Google Notebook is supposed to work well.
posted by lunchbox at 10:29 AM on July 11, 2007

WikiPad is another good private wiki-like-thing for yourself, except it runs entirely on your computer. It's useful if you cross-reference a lot of stuff, but it can also be a little overwhelming.
posted by anaelith at 10:39 AM on July 11, 2007

Er. WikidPad.
posted by anaelith at 10:40 AM on July 11, 2007

Microsoft OneNote is tops for what you described. Google Notes looks interesting, I haven't yet tried it.

Someone wrote an extension for Firefox called Clip to Onenote that does just that--select the text or object, right click, Clip to OneNote, and there it is.

If it's something in print or something I see while out and about, I usually take a photo of it with my cameraphone so I can look it up and get a soft copy, or do additional research. Other times I'll text myself an email with a term that piqued my interest, a good book, a movie to see, etc.
posted by Brian James at 11:22 AM on July 11, 2007

I kind of like Ultra Recall. I really wish there would be something that combined Ultra Recall (good organization/search) and OneNote (great editing). At the moment it seems that the perfect application does not yet exist.
posted by davar at 1:15 PM on July 11, 2007

Wow, great! I'll look into all of these! How about integrating the paper clippings into the mix?
posted by sLevi at 4:13 PM on July 11, 2007