I’m writing my PhD and sometimes feel like I’m losing my mind trying to balance home and work tasks, thesis tasks, personal and household habits, and potential connecting these to notes. I really struggle if everything isn’t in one place I can’t keep track of it.
I’ve been using Beaverhabits for habits, Baikal for Caldav connected to iPhone reminders and Thunderbird tasks, and memos and trilium for notes. I also, use a notebook for daily stuff and move it over to digital if it isn’t finished by 5.
Any recommendations? I would really appreciate it. I enjoy thinking about how to do and manage work efficiently but also need a firm system.
I use Joplin for note taking.
You really sound like the taget for Logseq
Thanks! Could you expand?
You can write anything in the daily notepad and link it to any concept or page anywhere, and have backlinks, and it builds a graph of all of this. It can handle TODOs as well
How can you sync it though? I am running Linux and iPhone. Only paid sync?
@ocean @seliaste
You can use Syncthing, FolderSync… even the monster Dropbox… What I use is Filen, but you have to manually download the folder for Android. This is not a big problem for me, though, because I’m mostly a PC user 💻️ I might look for other options in the future, but I’m OK now.
💡 Ah, and not to forget: You could use Logseq’s sync if you like it in order to support the project (I personally enjoy it a lot, it helps me very much with learning, and it’s not so hard to learn how to use it if what you want is not highly advanced text formatting)I think zero of those options work for iPhone sadly… I do see the paid but worried about security
@ocean Plus, you can search for alternative apps for syncing, this is what I did too
I mean if you want one app to rule them all, there’s only ever been one option… Emacs. It can be your text editor, task organizer, calendar… operating system. If by work efficiently you mean endlessly feel the need to make tweaks and modifications, and maybe learn an entire idiosyncratic language while you’re at it… Emacs. Praise be.
You mean Vim?
Sacrilege.
So I’ve got a nextcloud instance set up, and using the notes, tasks and calendar apps. There’s a note app for mobile already, for tasks I use Tasks.org and for my calendar I use fossify calendar. The last two I sync using DAVx5. It’s pretty nice honestly, and all of these apps have widget options which is amazing and really helpful for my productivity setup. Are there better apps or software out there? Probably, but for me simplicity is best.
I use HIIT on f-droid to time my stretching every day. It’s actually meant for High Intensity Interval Training, but it’s perfect for any activity that has regular intervals. I have it set for 60 second ‘stretches’ and 8 seconds for switching positions.
*Regular stretching (especially after physical activity) is shown to improve overall mood and health, especially if you have trouble sleeping.
taking apps meant for one thing and using them for something else is my favorite thing
even if this is still very related because it’s physical activity timing
Yeah, it felt really cool in a specific way when I found it.
Over the years I’ve tried so many apps for this. In the end, I always come back to having a physical notepad and printed calendar where I can write stuff and have it visible in my room
Kanboard
I got the ADHD. I got different shit going all the time.
Kanboard let’s me throw together a project and very quickly add the tasks I know I’ll need. I self host an instance for my wife and I, mostly for my chores, but its our honeydo list as well.
Seems like you’d have different boards for family stuff and PhD stuff.
Maybe instead of choosing an app, you could consider the overall process of tracking what you need to do. Read David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”. It’s short. Then you can apply that process using your favorite app.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
My favorite app for GTD is emacs and org-mode.
The solution to this problem, as well as many others, is Emacs.
The problem to this solution as well as many others, is emacs.
There’s probably a package for that problem.
For you, I’d recommend trying Logseq. It wasn’t for me, but feature-wise it might be what you’re looking for.
Failing that, using todo.txt for your notes might work better. However, the only usable app on iOS for this is SwiftoDo, and you would need to figure out how to sync the file yourself.
Here's my own stack
- For notes, I just have a folder full of Markdown files I edit using QOwnNotes and Micro on desktop and Markor on mobile, synchronised with Syncthing.
- On iOS, you can use Möbius Sync for Syncthing, and the least crap Markdown editors I found were MDNotes and Kodex.
- For to-do lists, I use a todo.txt (also on Syncthing), which I edit with Sleek on desktop and Markor on mobile.
- For calendars, I use Posteo (an email provider, with contacts and calendars). The calendars are synchronised using CalDAV, wherein I access them with Thunderbird on desktop and DAVx⁵/Fossify Calendar on mobile.
- CalDAV and CardDAV, as you know, are compatible with iOS out-of-the-box.
- For notes, I just have a folder full of Markdown files I edit using QOwnNotes and Micro on desktop and Markor on mobile, synchronised with Syncthing.
For storing notes the best application I know is Joplin. It allows to deploy your own synchronization server and also use external providers
To get organized, Getting Things Done in Standard Notes and my email’s calendar app.
To work, Scrum in Taiga.
To handle life, the Healthy Minds app and Calibre to read Acceptance and Commitment Therapy books.
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I don’t find it that simple with so many things going on: PhD, baby, family, and bullshit tasks. Plus, really any friction in the tasks management makes it feel impossible.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
@ocean I have used my brain for that on occassion. Definitely recommended.
Is that FOSS? I believe people haven’t been able to run it in compatibility with other software yet.
You dividing this into two comments was sinister haha! Thanks, that looks really cool :) makes me wish I had an android. I’ll try it out on my pc
Maybe something like Joplin, Org Mode for Emacs, Zettelkasten, Getting Things Done? Maybe a boring Nextcloud, that one has lots of individual apps and they’re supposed to interconnect.
I’m not really sure what to recommend here, a personal knowledge management platform, a calendar software… I can see how it’s a lot of different things you need to juggle. And I don’t have a good solution myself. I always wanted to some good system, and we really have a lot of software available which connect tasks, notes, appointments, knowledge. But I think it’s a lot about the mindset. You mainly need some dedication and it needs to be executed properly, or it won’t work well. The tool/software comes on top and just makes it easier. At the same time it’s really nice to have things digital and not just in a paper journal. And sometimes it’s the small things like reminders about appointments on the phone… And that might be difficult with some tools if they’re made more for knowledge than for calendar stuff.
I’m currently making ends meet with the several Nextcloud apps. But I don’t have as much to coordinate. I’ve always wanted to use one of the Wiki-like personal knowledge management systems (Silverbullet), but I’m a bit too chaotic for that.
