Thomas shared a Matthew Cornell blog post with me recently: My Big-Arse Text File – a Poor Man’s Wiki+Blog+PIM. It motivated me to start using a text file for logging my daily activities.
I used such a file for several years. It evolved from my use of a daily planner, which I used for recording events and thoughts as well as for planning. Then, when I got my first Palm handheld, I started keeping notes on it. There was a program, whose name I cannot recall, that let me convert Palm notes to text files on a PC. Modifications to either the PC note or the Palm note were kept in sync.
I liked this a lot. The Palm search functions were very fast and I could always find my reference information quickly. And, as another aid to finding information, I began assigning tags to my entries: _FAM_ _BUS_ _MED_ _MAJOR_ etc. It was also great for a weekly review.
Then I got my first Pocket PC, and I migrated to using Microsoft Word files instead of text files. That works, of course, but as Matthew points out, you lose portability when going away from the simple text file format.
Anyway, this is something for you to consider. I find that it not only helps me keep up with information, it also helps me have more of a sense of peace, knowing that I’ve recorded information instead of just letting float around in my head. I wish I had not stopped using text files like this … there are a lot of things that have happened in the past few years that I wish I had written down. Hopefully, I won’t stop again.
Matthew has some good points on how to make the most of the text files, and I highly recommend a read of his article.
Related post: Using a How-To Directory