Workflow

Here are some (probably) unnecessary things I’ve been doing.

The new M4 MacBook Air arrived, and it changed how I have things set up around here.

I wanted a different view into my org-journal history, so I imported it into Day One Plain text is great, but has limits. I’ve been journaling in plain text (.org) with org-journalsince 2018. It’s just a bunch of .org files in a folder. It’s great, and, you know, future-proof. Before Org-Journal, I used Day One for journaling as far back as 2011. Day One is pretty, powerful, and available everywhere. There are “on this day” and “today” features that I find useful. It integrates smoothly with the Photos app, and it stamps entries with the current location and weather conditions. Add fast sync on all devices with end-to-end encryption, and it makes for a darn nice journaling setup. ...

Joan Westenberg, in The Cult of Hard Mode: Why Simplicity Offends Tech Elites: …hard mode is where status lives. This is exactly what I’ve been thinking about lately. It hurts to hear it out loud. Read the article, but here are a few quotes that reminded me how far down the complexity rabbit holes I’ve traveled. And under it all is the same impulse: make it harder than it needs to be, so I can feel smarter than I am. ...

Remember my “Reduce and Simplify” goal for 2024? That was a good idea, eh?

I wish I’d stop writing about the tools I use to write about the tools I use.

At the beginning of 2024, I had grand plans to Reduce & Simplify. I was also determined to use what I have. I’ve done neither of those things. It’s November. I tried for a while. Or rather, I tried a bunch of different times, which had the effect of making everything less simple. Instead of limiting the number of tools I use, I switched from one to another (in an honest but misguided effort to make things simpler). The result has not been the nice, clean, simple set of tools I had hoped for. Instead of having few dependencies and requiring little maintenance, my stuff is spread everywhere and littered with neediness. ...

I may have solved at least some of my problems caused by taking notes too many different apps. I moved all of them into ~/Documents/Notes, with subfolders per app. So… ├── Denote ├── Howm ├── Obsidian └── SilverBullet You’ll notice SilverBullet in there, my newest infatuation. But here’s the trick, I just point the default target for HoudahSpot searches at the enclosing Notes/ folder, and I can find most anything right away. You’ll note that this means I am restricted to apps that allow me to configure where notes are kept and that they’re kept in some form of plain text. That covers most of my tools. I had been using DEVONthink for this, but it’s been giving me trouble lately so I’m looking at simpler options. I’m digging it. ...

I’m tired of moving things around on my computers

How about I stick QR codes on index cards as a way to quickly find the original reference?

Reducing complexity is never accomplished by adding complexity.

A tactical, localized reset of my system(s)

I used to use Evernote as a junk drawer. Now what should I use?

Derek Sivers posted about how he handles backups and it got me thinking about how I handle backups. I feel like I’m mostly covered. I use Backblaze on my MacBook Pro for continuous, off-site backups of both the internal SSD and the attached “Media” drive containing my photos, videos, etc. I clone “Media” to a separate external drive once a week. iCloud syncs my ~/Documents and ~/Desktop folders, so that should be covered. The headless Mac Mini is also using Backblaze. The Synology is synced nightly to Backblaze B2 storage. ...

I’m just coming off a week using Obsidian. Obsidian is really good and powerful and easy to use and extensible and probably the correct answer to the question, “Where should I keep my notes?”. I love Obsidian for a minute because of what it does and the fact that it’s not whatever I’d been using previously. It’s refreshing and finding new plugins to play with is good fun. But it’s janky. Why don’t more people complain about it being janky? It’s just blech to actually live in. It feels weird and loose and sloppy to me. ...

When is trying to avoid futzing actually just more futzing?

It shouldn’t take so much time to keep my stuff running smoothly.

If forced to come up with a theme for 2024, I’m going with “Reduce & Simplify”. I haven’t formally defined it yet, but the gist of it is to use what I already have, remove things I rarely use, and rely on fewer, simpler things. Having many choices is great, until it’s not. I crossed that threshold a while ago and it’s not good for my brain. So, one app per task. One notebook. One bag. Less software. Consolidate and remove. Those sorts of things. ...

Generating yearly and monthly calendars using Pcal on the command line

I always come back to using TheBrain.