@yellowibowtie yeah like I think I just need a manager, not management software

@lifewinning story of my life. *although* becoming a manager somehow made me suddenly *really good* at using management software—which all went away the moment I was left to my own devices again. so maybe it’s not that you need a manager, but you need to *be* a manager 😂😭

@lifewinning err, A Big Dilemma, at least.

@lifewinning @dredmorbius IMO, task management software is good for dealing with disorganization, but useless at dealing with motivation issues. It doesn't really matter which software.

The only thing I've found that helps with motivation issues is the Pomodoro Technique, but often I'm too demotivated to use it.

@jfm @lifewinning Software is /at best/ useful for dealing with disorganisation.

Much isn't even useful for /that/.

I've written up a bit elsewhere (Dreddit) about my index-card system. One aspect I find interesting is the /physicality/, and the amenability to reorganisation, grouping, and casual interaction or distinction. I can, literally and physically, grab a stack of cards and place them somewhere. Create groups by turning them 90 deg. Flip through them, etc.

@lifewinning @jfm There's the sense of /scale/. Ten cards (or nine) form a nice 3x3 grid. I could arrange 30-60 on a decent-sized corkboard (or wall). They can be clipped, pinned, stapled, etc., if necessary. 100 cards is a bundle, 500 a package, 1500 fill a file box. I'm up to about six boxes. Tabs and dividers provide other organisation. A small stash of cards is portable recording, in my messenger bag.

The one thing I cannot do is grep them, but ...

@lifewinning @jfm The process of visually flipping through the cards themselves brings up memories, creates new ideas and associations.

And there are a whole slew of authors who've relied on index cards, going back to Carl Linnaeus, who invented them.

For tasks, a file with dates (or weeks, or months) serves for reminders and circulation, again, management is physical.

And the CIA / NSA / MI6 / Mossad / GRU can't insert spyware into the set.

Of course one must have the 𝑝ℎ𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒 to be able to keep such things in, which gives software a huge advantage when space is limited. I submit that having virtual index cards on a telephone or tablet could work almost exactly the same way.
@dredmorbius @lifewinning @jfm

@Euphoria @lifewinning @jfm I have absolutely no idea what's between "have the" and "to be".

That characterset doesn't register here.

Sorry, @dredmorbius . That's good to know. I used a utility, YayText.com, to italicize "physical space".
@lifewinning @jfm

@Euphoria @lifewinning @jfm OK. That's why I stick with /slash/ for emphasis. Standards matter. Pasting that to a console revealed the text (tried after responding), so there's that.

I have this fantasy that one day I'll look at the computer and everything that once was enclosed in /s will be italicized, what was in *s will be bold, and what was bracketed by _s will be underlined, though that'll probably be more difficult to do. Hey, a girl can dream!
@dredmorbius @lifewinning @jfm
#Dreams #ItCouldHappen #Emphasis #Italics #Bold #Underline

@dredmorbius @jfm @lifewinning @Euphoria Same in my Amaroq app, unfortunately.

Good to know. Thanks for telling me, @stefanieschulte. I'll try to refrain from using it in the future and go back to good old standards like /italics/ and *underscore*.
@dredmorbius @jfm @lifewinning

Oh dear. I thought I'd replied hours ago to say that those words should have been /physical space/ but I'm not seeing it in the thread. Ah, well.
@dredmorbius @lifewinning @jfm

@Euphoria @lifewinning @jfm We're good, I sorted that out :smile:

@Euphoria @lifewinning @jfm The only system that has anything close to the flexibility of index cards that I'm familiar with is Hypercard. And even that's not a real analogue.

Yes, there's benefit to having stuff in electronic form, for portability. I've a library of thousands of works in my tablet, and can carry them around with me and read them, though the organisation available is /abysmal/. I've ranted on that a few times.

@jfm @lifewinning @Euphoria But for capture, cards win. And for my main work, that's going to happen in an office with references handy. This from someone who's had most everything electronic for a long, long time.

On the road, a few hundred cards, tops, is an excellent capture system. If that needs to get processed into electronic records, it can be. But the translation itself is a very lossy process.

Ah, *sigh*, Hypercard, probably my all time favorite application. Gosh, I loved Hypercard and was so sad to see it go. I was a real Hypercard genius. It revolutionized my life. I sure would like to have something like it again.
@dredmorbius @lifewinning @jfm

Another thing that made Hypercard so brilliant. Maybe someone will make a version of it for tablets. It can be quite difficult to stay virtually organized. I often lament it, too. But, then, it can also be difficult to remain organized physically, even more so, in my experience. Of course, I move quite frequently. It's one of the reasons I'm building a portable home.
@dredmorbius @lifewinning @jfm

@jfm @lifewinning @Euphoria I'm also starting to compile a long list of gripes about eBooks. I'll spare y'all for now, but non-OCRd text, misregistration on highlighting, search issues, and buggy encodings, are all issues.

I was just thinking that that'd be a good reason not to get an ebook, though I believe you mean the ones that have been scanned from actual books, which usually *do* seem to be horrendous. I heard a man on a podcast bragging about how great his was on Amazon, just like the physical book, so I downloaded a sample and found it very uncomfortable to look at and was so happy I hadn't purchased it.
@dredmorbius @jfm @lifewinning

I think what it comes down to is whether or not people continue to buy them. If reviews & ratings are bad they won't and either the quality will improve or they'll all be converted to actual text with properly embedded graphic files.
@dredmorbius @jfm @lifewinning

@dredmorbius Do you have any links to examples of how this system works in practice?

@jamie Some description of my own, and more to others', here:
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/u4dgr0tkxk4tk9npuvex5a