Open Q - organisational systems

[hwarium]

Question to moots and flyby visitors alike: how do you organise your life?! What do you use to track the myriad of sisyphean tasks that composite the human existence: chores, life admin, hobbies, social commitments and big events, side projects, reading lists, expense tracking and budgeting, journalling, article archiving, correspondance..... .... ..or perhaps do you just let go and speedrun raw.

I'm thinking about resetting some systems because items have been slipping off my mind into the ether. I'm currently looking at some kind of app for reoccurring tasks (ticktick / things 3 / microsoft to-do) and consolidating calendars, but would love to know what has worked, or not worked, for this corner of the internet.

Current profile:

• digital systems: android phone + pc + OS + iOS
• journalling, planning, expense tracking, general list-making: pen and paper (jibun techo + leuchtturm)
• budgeting: excel
• thoughts dump, flash to-dos, gym notes: google keep
• holiday planning: google maps and google sheets
• hobby tracking: todoist but ineffective

Comments

[garote]

What a fun exercise!

OmniFocus for to-do stuff that I expect to blast through in a month, and for checklists that I'll use repetedly.

Apple Notes for randomly scribbled stuff. If it gets big and interesting it goes to:

MacJournal, if it's personal and journal-entry-like, or

OneNote if it's more like an essay or a project. OneNote syncs with the phone and has tabs and pages and whatnot, and it's free.

On the phone, I use Scanner Pro. Not free, but really cheap, and really fast. I quickly scan every piece of paper I think I'll need later for any reason, including receipts and paper mail. It stores in iCloud.

Every now and then I open the iCloud folder on my computer and drag all the scans into Devonthink, then delete them off iCloud.

Devonthink is pricey, but I only had to buy it once. I use Devonthink for everything that's non-creative. Receipts, manuals, utility bills, tax forms, insurance stuff, etc. I have it set to make text-searchable PDFs out of everything I drop in. It's absolutely loaded with features and I only use about a quarter of them. Tons of stuff for auto-organizing.

But here's the thing: Devonthink has options for cloud storage, but you don't need them. You can install their app on your phone, and configure it to automatically sync everything between the phone and your lappy over your local network. It never goes up-and-back to some random server.

This is great for three reasons:

1. I have a copy of everything on my phone and can find stuff any time, even when standing in line at the DMV. It's automatically excluded from cloud backups. Which matters because:

2. I'm 50 years old, and this Devonthink archive goes back 25 years now. It's 20 gigabytes of stuff. I have the serial numbers, manuals, and receipts for everything, on hand all the time. This has come in REALLY handy over the years, especially when traveling.

3. I have a lot of sensitive information in Devonthink.

I don't want it going anywhere near cloud storage, a.k.a. The Clown. Stuff permanently stored in The Clown is an open invitation to get it quietly stolen when some IT bugger accidentally leaves the wrong port open during a database move. This way, the "attack surface" for someone stealing my digital life is reduced to the people who can physically walk away with my laptop and guess my password. Whereas the "attack surface" for stuff in The Clown is the whole damn planet.

Also, I absolutely hate "subscriptions" to software. I find it outrageous and criminal. You put your personal data on there, and they hold it for ransom, forever? No thanks...