Comment by itmag | Hacker News Reader

Comment by itmag | Hacker News Reader

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I have an elaborate system using text-files and tags/subtags, evolved over the last 5-6 years.

I keep track of a lot of things:

-expenses

-gym sessions

-leads for my magazine

-startup ideas

-personal development insights

-diary entries

-brainstorms

-quotes (see this: http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-for-some-tiny-web-softw...)

-stuff I should read later (but almost never get around to)

-ideas for lyrics

-fragments for various novels I am working on

-various biometric data (morning weight, stuff like that)

-TODO

-plans (I do try to aggregate all of these into a standalone "plan file" since it's such a crucial function of my administrative system)

-and a bunch of other things I can't recall right now. Let's just say I generate a relatively huge amount of notes every single day.

So a typical temp file might contain some thing like this:

itm: IT9: recruit: foobar foobarsson

itm: todo: find logo designer

todo: buy anal lube

planfile: BHAGs: $big_hairy_audacious_goal

planfile: schemes: $insert_greasy_scheme

diary: 5/12 2011: went to Footown today, got wasted

expenses: 5/12 2011: cat food 10 kr | alcohol 300 kr | anal lube 49 kr

lyrics: $lyrics / $more_lyrics / $even_more_lyrics

idea: business: hamburger earmuffs

read: http://reddit.com/r/foo/whatever

insight: $deep_insight

brainstorm: what topics should I learn in 2012?

I dump all of this piecemeal into temporary text files which I then transfer periodically to a central place. I used to go through them and sort everything into separate piles, but at this point that would probably be a full time job.

If I need to find something these days, pretty much the only way is to use grep and hope that I tagged something the right way (sometimes I am too lazy and just dump crap in there untagged).

If you think it sounds like I run my life like a gigantic byzantine bureacracy, you would be right. But at the same time, it's probably a huge net-win for me in the long run as it allows me to keep track of stuff on a scale that would be impossible otherwise.

I would like to write some software that could parse my notes and make my life easier. Anyone else in the same boat?

That software already exists and is called org-mode :)

Some reasons to use org-mode:

* Org-mode is part of Emacs, so you can extend it in Lisp. If you so desired, you could record your weight each morning by sending yourself an email and scheduling an Emacs function... But someone has probably already done that in the 35 years of Emacs' existence. If not, Emacs macros are very easy to write, because they emulate the actions you would take yourself. (See my 9 liner for incrementally searching for keyboard shortcuts: https://github.com/aantn/castle/blob/master/home/.emacs.d/cu...)

* All org files are plain text

* All "items" in org files are part of a foldable hierarchy

* All items can be tagged

* TODOs are really just items whose headline starts with "TODO". Org-mode adds features for toggling, finding, and visualizing them

* You can extend org-mode any way you want. For example, I added a DEFER status for my TODO items. (https://github.com/aantn/castle/blob/master/home/.emacs.d/cu...)

* You can scatter your notes across as many files as you want. Org-mode can parse them to build your daily agenda (http://orgmode.org/manual/Agenda-Views.html)

* Org-mode displays formatting without hiding the markup (e.g. everything between two asterisks is bold)

* Org-mode exports to LaTeX, pdf, and html. (Embedded LaTeX is rendered too.)

* Org mode allows awesome links of all kinds (http://orgmode.org/manual/Hyperlinks.html#Hyperlinks)

* Code snippets can be embedded in org-mode and even executed

* Org-mode supports tables with formulas. It also includes a ledger for accounting. (http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-l...)

See my comment below for a discussion on organizing notes and searching in them.

Org mode looks very tempting.

Main problem: I'll have to learn emacs :)

But, I've been meaning to learn a serious editor (ie vim or emacs) for a long time now so might as well bite the bullet and do it.

Sure, I'm convinced. But I still have tons of legacy data.

It isn't all or nothing. You can open all your old files in org-mode and slowly start taking advantage of org-mode.

It's all text. No conversion necessary.

Sure, but what I need to do then is to write a semi-automated converter which just shoves everything with a clear tag formulation into org-mode and asks me what to do with the rest.

Thanks, this actually sounds doable to me now!

Emacs org-mode (http://orgmode.org/) seems to provide most of your requirements. Haven't used it myself, though.

Yeah, I might switch to something like that in future.

But, I still have a HUGE pile of legacy cruft containing valuable notes.

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