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Ask HN: Maintaining a searchable work diary/agenda

by plg on 11/14/23, 2:49 PM with 18 comments

Suggestions for maintaining a work-related agenda/diary? In the old days I used a Filofax (remember those!). New days, the equivalent would be I guess a bullet journal notebook sort of thing. What about an electronic version? I am mainly on MacOS. Day One app? Agenda app? emacs orgmode? Just plain text files in my own directory structure? I don't need a system/app that allows multiple users or collaboration, this would be just for my own benefit. Would be interested in hearing from people who actually have something going.

  • by brudgers on 11/14/23, 3:38 PM

    Why not go back to a Filofax?

    I mean search only has to be good enough and maybe a Filofax is good enough or you can make it good enough through progressive change to the way you use it.

    This is premised on the fact that you have experience with the tool and have had many years to better learn what works for you since you have used it.

    To put it another way, a Filofax might be the simplest thing that might work for you because you can pick up where you left off.

    And if nothing else, using a Filofax again will give you a clearer idea of what you don't want (learning from failure)...it might be the case that you like the idea of being a person who maintains a diary/agenda more than the fruits/labor of maintaining one (not maintaining a dairy/agenda currently would be consistent with that).

    Anyway, software wise, you could do worse than OneNote (and quite likely better) with the caveat that I am the type of person who likes the idea of being the type of person who is organized on paper more than I like the fruits/labor of being organized on paper.

    Good luck.

  • by uaas on 11/14/23, 8:38 PM

    I just have orgmode files. One for day job, one for hobby projects, and one personal. Fun fact: I have been playing with querying it with a local LLM, and it’s quite usable, although I can also find information via fuzzy search/grep too.

  • by VoodooJuJu on 11/14/23, 3:14 PM

    Zim wiki or just text files in a folder. Nothing special. Don't get special with it. Waste of time.

    I use zim-wiki for simple searchable lists. I also journal, but hand-write everything. Keep a few pages blank in the back for an index. Then when I fill a journal, I go back and read it, and write out an index on those last few pages. Keeps things as searchable as is possible for a dead-tree diary, at least the important bits and keywords.

    Creating an index like this forces you to revisit, evaluate things. Forces you to think through what's important, what to take away from what you've written. You may take away very little (and that's okay).

  • by iteria on 11/14/23, 3:42 PM

    I guess what do you need? I use Obsidian with the daily notes plugin. They sit with my other notes. I have a day planner on paper just because I've found paper to be useful for disposable things like tracking what I spent my time doing in minutia, but electronic notes good for things I'll want to reference later like questions, to-dos, deliverables I was working on, road blocks I ran into, etc. I might transfer my paper notes into my electronic one sometimes if it happens to be relevant.

  • by konradb on 11/14/23, 4:39 PM

    Big plug for logseq here. After trying Evernote, Apple Notes, Roam Research, Obsidian, and Logseq, I'm finally happy.

    Obsidian has got strangely popular... but for me Logseq wins because of the block-based way of working (which Roam also has) is much more flexible. Instead of just making monolithic notes, you can measure data points, reproduce blocks, query data, etc. You are crafting from much more flexible clay.

    I can interlink all around my knowledge base. I can, in my daily journey, add points under tags or headings, that I can then query in reverse. I can make pages from blocks on other pages. I can keep track of meeting types, specific meetings, individuals at them, topics, etc. It is flexible enough to be very powerful but also doesn't need me to make upfront decisions. I can just build things out day by day.

  • by micahdeath on 11/14/23, 4:03 PM

    I've been using GitHub Projects lately

    1 classic project for my check lists. The cards are open and I use check boxes to check them off as I perform them.

    1 non-classic project for my tasks. I create a title only card and added a 'status 2' type (25%, 50%, 75%, complete, waiting, staged) and another field for the type of work (Paperwork, maintenance, project a, project b)

    I'm also using Microsoft Sticky Notes to track pending work.

    (I haven't found anything I like yet)

  • by datadrivenangel on 11/14/23, 3:56 PM

    I use obsidian / vscode as an editor for markdown files, but keep the files as basically pure text.