Re: More about how I use Yojimbo
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 -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's workingcorrectly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: More about how I use Yojimbo
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. -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I use Yojimbo for..
This is a great idea! I've always wondered how folks use Yojimbo and approach data management in general. Although we all have our pet requests, I'm sure the vast majority of us incorporated deeply into our workflow. For me, data management falls into one of the following (constantly shifting as I try to improve and products come along/get better) buckets (in order of preference): TaskPaper (tagged for context) - for all tasks Yojimbo (heavily tagged) - for all loose text, code snippets, most PDFs, images that don't go into iPhoto, serials, passwords, lately also important emails iPhoto (heavily tagged) - for all personal photos, wallpaper, screen captures (other than a single screen shot which goes into Yojimbo now), personal videos iTunes (heavily categorized, clean metadata - tag like) - for all music and 3rd party videos File system (half heartedly tagged) - for files that don't go into Yojimbo (mostly presentations, Word, Xmind, source code, , PDFs that just seem too large, PDFs that are commented Entourage - for email and most attachments What I've found is that I'd love to just shove most things into Yojimbo for the sake of being able to find all things related to a tag or union/intersection of tags, but realize that would look suspiciously like a file manager. Leap may work well except it doesn't seem to interact with Yojimbo. I also often wonder how others use the features of Yojimbo to help with their workflow. Between tags, folders, labels, flags, and comments, there are a plethora of approaches. Yet Yojimbo, perhaps due to the discipline of the Bare Bones team, remains aesthetically pleasing. IMO, EagleFiler is a bit cluttery and Together just doesn't quite flow right (although I do like it a lot). Personally, I think Evernote is the most promising up and comer. Anyway, to get back to my Yojimbo system: Tags - categorizes the data (and sometimes, why I'm storing it - howto, reference, etc.) Flags - for things I'm actively working on or need to otherwise pay attention to Folders - for organizing data against a project (i.e. research for an essay or presentation) Comments - comments about the data usually the source if other than my work Labels - I've had the toughest time here because I originally wanted to use it for why I'm storing it but it hasn't stuck for some reason. I think the colors are too much when used too liberally. I guess I don't really use labels much. Information gets captured via a shortcut key and the input panel (I dislike the drop dock and have disabled them) or a capture script (for things like capturing from Entourage or Safari). I tag it, add a source comment if needed, and flag it if appropriate. Then I periodically go through, retagging, deleting, and otherwise sorting/shuffling. Rinse. Repeat. On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Luis Roca [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I want to start a positive thread on what interesting things everyone uses Yojimbo for.. Maybe everyone could post one interesting thing they use the application for, we all might find some new uses.. = -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: I use Yojimbo for..
My system keeps changing, but at the moment... Folders - I maintain very broad categories of folder, which are really only used for the drop box panel. They correspond to the answer to the question why am I storing this? Is it for future reference, research material to be examined later, a random thought I've had myself, or an asset that I am trying to create for use elsewhere (e.g. a piece of documentation)? Sometimes if I'm doing an awful lot of dragging and dropping from Safari I'll set up a temporary folder for a project, but I'll tag the contents and delete the folder afterwards. Tags - most of the classification is done with tags. Material for an individual project is defined by a combination of one or more tags, and for all of the current ones, there's a tag folder, prefixed by . so that they all go to the top of the list. I used to file projects in folders, but when you delete a folder you can never find out what was in it again, and I can never tell when I might need to look at an old project once more. (I find it useful to maintain a list of the tags that get applied to individual projects - I've been experimenting with prefixing all project code tags with p., but it's not proved worth it yet.) Oh, there are also tag folders for todo and idea, though I do most of my task management with Todoist or Taskpaper. todo tagged items are usually reference data which won't fit anywhere else. Flags - a flagged item is just one I can get to with the Flagged Items list. It doesn't mean anything more than I use this a lot or I should pay attention to this - if I findmyself looking for that item a lot, I'll flag it, if I find I'm not, I'll remove the flag. Labels - I don't really use these a lot except as decoration. There may be a good way to use them - they've got the advantage of being very visually distinctive - but if there is one I don't know what it is. Also, they're a bit hard to export if it ever comes down to that. -- -- This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list yojimbo-talk@barebones.com. To unsubscribe, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.listsearch.com/yojimbotalk.lasso Have a feature request, or not sure if the software's working correctly? Please send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
