Last year I posted some brief ponderings about a few different wikis. At the time I was intent on getting to grips with TiddlyWiki. I began doing that and used it within my employment for around 5 or 6 weeks. During that time I migrated my previous notes into TiddlyWiki and began using it to take notes during meetings and to record a range of tasks and activities. Shortly after that, however, I came across what was, for me, was a major hurdle. That hurdle was accessing and updated my wiki whilst I was travelling. Each time I edited and saved the wiki it was another 1+mb of usage on my mobile plan. Even a one-letter change and save would mean the wiki in toto was being resaved to my cloud storage. As a result TiddlyWiki got shelved.
Over the years I’ve searched for, tried, stopped using, used again, reconsidered, stopped using, considered some more on note-taking/recording/filing systems.
Generally I’ve opted for computer-based systems but have also tried paper-based methods.
The list is probably not complete, and in no particular order:
- Treepad
- Zim
- GTD
- Bullet Journalling
- CherryTree
- DIY Planner
- Written to do lists
- Online to do lists
- Spreadsheets with to do lists
- Pocket notebooks - cheap ones from the supermarket that only collect info, not retain it.
- Larger notebooks such as Moleskine and Field Notes
- Plain text computer files
- My brain (limited, poor recall ability, prone to failure)
I would class Treepad, Zim and Cherrytree together in the same forest; to do lists and bullet journals in the same paddock; notebooks (including DIY Planner) as the medium rather than the method; and my brain as the fallback for all of the others.