Re: More about how I use Yojimbo

2008-05-06 Thread infrahile

Sounds like you need OmniFocus.

I find it works perfectly with YJ - any detailed notes, saved  
documents I have relating to a task in YJ can be linked to from OF by  
pasting the item link as a note for the task making the two work  
pretty seamlessly together.


T.


On 6 May 2008, at 13:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 I read and re-read your post. I find
 your system impressive but very confusing
 to me.

Maybe I made things sound more complicated than they had to be by  
giving too many details. Basically, whether I'm doing a GTD review  
or I'm making plans for a particular project (which are two  
different things, though similar), I'm switching back and forth  
fairly rapidly among a lot of notes, maybe just three or four or  
five, maybe as many as a couple dozen, as I think of things to jot  
down.


If you saw me working at this, you'd see me focused mostly on one  
note at a time, but frequently skipping to another note as I thought  
of a to-do item, or an idea to think about later, or an issue I need  
to be sure is cleared up by a certain time, or something I need to  
remember to speak with someone about. Then I skip back to whatever  
note I'm mostly focused on.


The part I'm having trouble getting to work to my satisfaction is  
the archival part. I want to be able to put away my completed notes  
for a project, and yet be able to easily bring them up again as a  
group at some point in the future, maybe three months later, maybe  
two years later. But in the meantime I don't need to have them on  
the top level of my collections. I want to get them out of sight,  
without making them hard to bring up again.


If I could put those folders into a superfolder, I could bring up a  
set of old project notes with two clicks, one on the Completed  
projects superfolder and one on the specific subfolder. And filing  
away a set of notes once a project is completed would be as easy as  
dragging the folder into the superfolder. I can't think of anything  
I can do with tags that isn't *more* work than this, not less.


Somebody wrote that they didn't need hierarchy so much as just one  
higher level of collection in order to gather collections and tag  
collections into groups. That's my case exactly. I just want ONE  
folder that I can gather my less needed collections into so that my  
list stays short.


(The reason David Allen recommends a simple A-to-Z filing system as  
part of the GTD method, it seems to me, is less about ease of  
retrieval and more about ease of filing. If you're in the middle of  
a productively heated bout of planning and you have to give every  
item even twenty or thirty seconds of thought and preparation before  
you can file it, you'll start putting things in a To be filed  
pile, so as not to break your flow of thought, instead of filing  
each item immediately. The point isn't to put thought into your  
filing system so that you can find things again easily; the point is  
to make the filing effortless so you'll do it for each item right  
away the very moment you generate it, and if that means that when  
you're retrieving it you have to look in a couple of wrong places  
first because you can't remember whether you filed something under  
Banana cream pie or Desserts or Recipes, big deal, it's  
nowhere near as big a drain on your system as it is to let a To be  
filed stack pile up. The fact is, whether you use tags liberally or  
not, the fear that you're going to lose a file forever is 99%  
illusion. The only way you're really likely to lose a file forever  
is if there's a software glitch or a hardware failure that destroys  
the file; if you stay backed up, the worst that's likely to happen  
is that it may take you three or four tries to find your file  
instead of one.)


S

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Re: More about how I use Yojimbo

2008-05-06 Thread Bill Rowe

On 5/6/08 at 5:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


(The reason David Allen recommends a simple A-to-Z filing system as
part of the GTD method, it seems to me, is less about ease of
retrieval and more about ease of filing.


For me, this is where Yojimbo excels. With the current model, I 
don't need to give any thought to the filling system. Simply tag 
the item with something simple and let Yojimbo stick the item in 
the Library.



If you're in the middle of a productively heated bout of planning and
you have to give every item even twenty or thirty seconds of thought
and preparation before you can file it, you'll start putting things in
a To be filed pile, so as not to break your flow of thought, instead
of filing each item immediately. The point isn't to put thought into
your filing system so that you can find things again easily; the point
is to make the filing effortless so you'll do it for each item right
away the very moment you generate it,


For me, this is exactly the issue with nested folders. I have to 
think about where an item should go which takes more thought 
than simply adding a one or two word tag to the item.



and if that means that when you're retrieving it you have to look in a
couple of wrong places first because you can't remember whether you
filed something under Banana cream pie or Desserts or Recipes,
big deal, it's nowhere near as big a drain on your system as it is to
let a To be filed stack pile up.


This is debatable. There is a time cost with either method, the 
time I spend looking for an item that I just don't recall where 
I put it versus the time going though a group of items to be 
filed and filing them. I think which costs more time for a given 
individual will depend on the individual.



The fact is, whether you use tags liberally or not, the fear that
you're going to lose a file forever is 99% illusion. The only way
you're really likely to lose a file forever is if there's a software
glitch or a hardware failure that destroys the file; if you stay backed
up, the worst that's likely to happen is that it may take you three or
four tries to find your file instead of one.)


Depending on the size of your hard drive, the number of items 
you store etc, this could easily be more than three or four 
tries. Given a sufficiently large drive with a sufficient number 
of files, a misplaced item could be effectively lost.


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