What do you use for general-purpose list management? (MLO or something else - if so what?)

[John Smith]

Hi 

What tool(s) do you good people use for general-purpose list management?

i.e. Do you use MLO to store factual information - presumably in a different .ML file(!) - as well as using MLO for managing your task & to-do lists. 

I need to create pretty large files (containing say 10,000+ records), containing multi-level hierarchical factual information on a wide variety of subjects.

e.g. Evernote (which I have never used seriously myself - but I think it's USP is to allow the tagging of external files such as images...)

e.g. MindManager (which fairly well - but it's going to get messy presenting such huge files visually. Also renewal fees are expensive.)

e.g. MS Excel (no quick & easy way to move things around the hierarchy, me thinks)

I am thinking about what you might call "support lists" for some of my projects. The information contained would NOT be actionable (mostly at least).
For example:

- List of areas & facts about a huge project I am involved with... and important information about the different sections of the project.

- Lists of jargon on new subjects that I am studying

- Lists of personal insights on various topics that I need to record somewhere

- Lists of people interested in particular subjects

- List of interesting general knowledge facts, that I'd like to remember...

etc etc

It would be important to be very easily be able to create tree-like hierarchical structures in the data, and to be able to whiz things up and down the hierarchy v easily (e.g. using hotkeys) too.

Ideally it would be nice to have links between branches of the tree(s) too (which I don't think MLO can do[??])

- How do you manage your non-actionable lists?

J

[JimboDimbo]

Over the years I find my ideas/focus/priorities change and the technology/software moves on, so the information landscape changes, but now I use:

1. Treepad for structured textual notes/info. (TreePad) Nice and quick, easy to structure but demands some main structural schema (to hang your ideas on). Getting a bit old now.

2. KeePass for all internet logins/passwords/subscriptions/network access (KeePass). Takes some getting used to, but worth the effort. Has evolved and updated over several years.

3. OneNote. For all my main study notes and copied internet info. Great at links and organising topics into sections/pages.

4. MLO for tasks. I really need an easy link from MLO notes to these other tools. Currently I don't bother because the links mess the notes up too much. I tend to use date records in the task note to update me for the last/next action, rather than try to create too many tasks. Although I do have around 600 tasks, but 200 of those are fixed notes (standards, terms and template lists). I use a status icon to tell me how 'hot' the task is and I am just implementing the Eisenhower/Covey Important/Urgent quadrant by changing (auto-format) the Note icon depending on the task settings (delayed by modelling the MLO computed-score and mapping onto the quadrant [currently a 9x9 matrix]). 

Whatever you use is never for very long, so investing too many days of effort trying for a single repository is probably going to end in frustration. I am finding that work assignments tend to be for 2 to 5 years. So I produce an evolving tool set to accompany me on the journey. I find that trying to adapt my methods to suit the tools and configure the tools to fit my method helps to organise my mental portfolio and this has reduced the frustration of changing tools. at least that's what I tell myself.

[Andrei Bacean]

Task management - mlo + paper calendar

Information management - mybase (by the way, it supports encryption)

Passwords - keepass

[Henk Walraven]

For Tasks and Projects I use MLO.

I use folders and sub-projects in MLO,for the tasks and information for Projects.And I use links to Evernote, where I store the information that needs more information. Like studies, project information, knowledge facts.

For example:

- List of areas & facts about a huge project I am involved with... and important information about the different sections of the project.

- Lists of jargon on new subjects that I am studying

- Lists of personal insights on various topics that I need to record somewhere

- Lists of people interested in particular subjects

- List of interesting general knowledge facts, that I'd like to remember...

etc etc

For large data I use MS Access.
But thats because I'm a developer and know how to use it.

And because I use McAfee for my laptop, I use SafeKey to store passwords etc.

Op dinsdag 13 januari 2015 17:49:14 UTC+1 schreef John Smith:

[Stéph]

A bit like Henk:
I use folders for notes connected with a project. (Unlike many other users, I'm more than happy to keep these in plain text format, using ______ for dividing lines and *bold* or _heading underline_ markers.);
I use file: links or http:// links to navigate to folders and documents on my PC or on the Internet.


By the way, to make information easy to find when I search for it in my outlines, I use a few hashtag symbols:
?name for people I've delegated to or need to contact about a particular task.
Job # for all job numbers, for when I come to fill in my timesheet.
Datestamp: for all notes about actions taken, calls etc, when working towards completing a task.
?? For any missing information.
+Projectname for all my projects - which helps me jump to the outline branch for a specific project.
&Role for all my roles/goals.

Stéphane

[Joel Azaria]

If your data fits into the "tree" structure, as seems to be what you're saying, then MLO is probably great for storing that data.

Rather than starting another .ml file (imho switching files is too much effort and I subscribe to David Allen's idea of "1 filing system"*) just create another item at the top level of your structure and mark at "hide in to do".  You can also mark it as a folder if you wish.

The advantage of this imo, is that everything is in one place.  You can easily move/copy items into projects as needed and as I recently learned you can make links between MLO items so you can link these to their projects or vice versa link from the project to this supporting info.

Every software has it's strengths and weaknesses.  Organizing things in a tree view, then searching/filtering that tree, is not just an MLO strength but one of the things it does better than it's competition and almost as well if not better than many dedicated outliners I've tried.  I have to go back to Shadow Plan or Bonsai on the PalmOS to think of something better.

Just to hit your other points:

• Evernote - great tagging, horrible tree structure outliner.  It's just not the paradigm of the software and while you may be able to work it out (as many have) there's always some workaround or kludge involved.
  
• Mind Manager - not especially familiar but if it's as many other mind mapping programs it's great for that and horrible at tree structure order.  If you like this paradigm though and still want a semblance of an "outline" or tree structure, have a look at a software called "TheBrain".  There is a free version but you will need the payed version for "outline view", which is what approximates the tree outline/tree structure.  Free version gives 30 or 45 days trial to the pro features so give it a shot if you think it might fit.  
• It's true strength is really in more freeform links than simple tree structure (linking 1 or more items to 1 or more other items in various 'relationships').  In this regard you might find it very good for everything on your list though imho keep the project stuff in mlo.  TheBrain is definitely strong for entering lists of people and linking them in relationships to other people, entities (employers, associates, family et al)  Personal insights and general knowledge stuff it works well for too.  The key is you have to prefer seeing things in a "visual" format - much like an 'infinite' mindmap.  I use it for specific purposes and as a general database and it works quite well for me at that.
• Excel - Just not made for this and once your lists grow beyond some threshold you'll notice.  But it seems you might already get that.

And while you didn't ask I see others are offering password managers so I'll suggest Roboform.  Been using for over 15 years and never had reason to question integrity or security (unlike LastPass, which I'd tell you to steer clear of).  I see another user suggests McAfee.  That company abandoned their integrity years ago (maybe even before John McAfee sold it if memory serves) so I'd advise to steer clear of them as well. (For anything)

hth.

*David Allen in his book GTD encourages the reader strongly to move *everything* into one unified filing system.  The only real exception, per his book, is single or special purpose filing systems - eg in a law firm there is a filing system for all the legal cases (by eg. case #) or an architect's office might have all the projects filed separately (e.g by project number) and these should be left as is.  Everything else in your life should migrate to one system.

[Roman Romanik]

Hi,

Give http://thebrain.com/ a try. It costs a lot, but there are always some ways to handle that.

Roman

[Daniel Sekera]

if you wouldn't mind sharing an opinion why not lastpass?

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[John Smith]

Henk, yes, I have been looking at Evernote - which has a huge following.

However I couldn't see any obvious way to store deep multiple-levels hierarchical information.

If I'm correct, in Evernote we can only have folders within folders and that's it.  [Nightmare!]

Or am I missing something?

What is clever is their multi-level hierarchy of tags - brilliant! [Yes, also possible within MLO - albeit extremely fiddly & counter intuitive to set up !!]

But that doesn't solve my problem. I am looking for a way of creating multiple layers (e.g. of say 6+ layers deep) of lists of factual date, wherein the *order* is important and items are easily moved both up and down the order and up and down the hierarchical tree just using the keyboard...

J

P.S. I guess MLO could do this however I am reluctant to want to muddy the already complex waters...

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[John Smith]

Joel

- Evernote - yes, horrible for tree structures.

- MindManager - works quite well once you learn the powerful hotkeys, but any mindmap becomes visually messy when too much data (& too many nodes...). Also take a long LONG time to open on my otherwise fast PC. Plus it just crashed when I tried pasting in about 250 items...(!)

- Excel - Yes, I guess you could have successive columns for successive layer of hierarchy... however I know of no easy hotkey way to whiz items up and down the list (i.e. to swap rows at a single keystroke)... let alone up and down the tree... Cutting and pasting entire rows is painful!

- MLO for pure facts? Yes, *MAYBE*... but in truth MLO wasn't really designed for this, and I feel in my bones I will find myself seeing facts when I want to see tasks... (plus possible formatting conflicts??).... moreover if I ever wanted to store more complex data (e.g. tables, photos, other media etc) I would be screwed.

- er... OneNote? Does anyone here use it? TBO, I am reluctant to even try it because I already pay FAR to much in license fees to Micro$oft... !  [deep sigh]

J

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[John Smith]

Yes, I have tried TheBrain. I absolutely love the idea of it but I absolutely hated the implementation. The problem is that some of us think visually i.e. in pictures and with The Brain everything leaps around all over the place. And do one's brain photos of the data never seem to match up. Eventually gave me a huge headache rather quickly!

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[Andrei Bacean]

Give a try to mybase (wjsoft mybase).
I used onenote but switched to MYBASE because it supports encryption of the database. Thus you can place the mybase file into the Dropbox without worrying about the security.

[Henk Walraven]

I use Help and Manual if i have to write documentation for software. A great tool for trees and references in documents. A very handy tools for outlines.

[Christoph Zwerschke]

John, maybe what you're looking for is an Outliner? Here is a huge list
of such tools:

http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/807/0/list-of-outliners

-- Christoph

[John Cesta]

Try sailforms for Android.

[Lisa]

I use Evernote, mainly for it's excellent web clipping (it's pretty good about guessing notebooks) and hopefully soon, for digitizing documents instead of keeping paper copies, if I ever get to that point. I've never gotten around to linking anything together.

 

Joel, can you tell me more about your LastPass concerns? My husband is a stickler about security and we use it on all our devices.

 

Lisa /  lstr...@gmail.com

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[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, Lisa.
Lastpass is a well regarded commercial closed-source cloud-based password manager. In 2011 Lastpass suffered two apparently unrelated security concerns.  Like bugs, these are probably unavoidable,  what matters is how they are addressed. There have been no documented losses I know of traced to these incidents, which is good.  The company committed to publishing an audit but didn't,  which is bad. Open source advocates such as myself believe that security based on secret code is a weak approach.  Keepass is an example of an open-source password manager.  Also there is some question as to whether "cloud-based" and "security" are compatible concepts.
-Dwight
Mlo betazoid on Android sgn2

[Dwight Arthur]

I agree with the desirability of having a single filing system, but I can't find a way to make it work. I have three.

 

MLO:nothing else has the power to organize my tasks. MLO in unable to be my one filing system because (1) Notes section cannot hold the stuff I need to keep there - needs RTF and attached files. (2) MLO Cloud storage is not secured enough to hold my sensitive data.

Evernote: The web clipper (mentioned by Lisa) and the embedded camera functions are incredibly useful. When i have to enter a bunch of text on the (Android) phone I feel that doing so in Evernote gives me the least risk of losing my partially completed work when the phone crashes, something interrupts me, etc.Formatted text, sketches, etc are easy. Sync between Windows and Android seems to be fast, reliable and pretty much effortless. Attached and embedded files, graphics, etc get synched nicely, I don't have to stop and say, oh I can't see that file on Android. I have a *lot* of MLO tasks that contain a link to an Evernote item that contains the attached files, snapshots and sketches. Evernote is not good at organizing or tracking the items and does not have the security for sensitive data.

I've been keeping sensitive data in SplashID for about a decade - it has acceptable (!) security and synchs well windows/android. I have a number of issues and would like to convert to keepass but it's going to be timeconsuming and I have not had time to try it yet. I do not have any links between SplashID and any other tools, except that I have a SplashID context in MLO that I use to track information that needs to get entered into SplashID

  

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 18.01.2015 um 06:00 schrieb Dwight Arthur:
> I agree with the desirability of having a single filing system, but
> I can't find a way to make it work. I have three.

I have even four, since in addition to Evernote, I also use OneNote.

Evernote is more like a journal with the time line as primary
classification criterion. OneNote is more like a Outliner with a
hierarchy of notebooks, sections and pages for classification.

For single-point-in time notes and web clips that I want to archive just
for the case I will need them again, Evernote is perfect. But for notes
and documents that are universally valid or long-lived and need to be
looked up or revised many times, OneNote is suited better.

I like the ease of use of Evernote where I don't have to worry about
outliner hierarchy when filing something. Still, important and "living"
documents need to be easily accessible via a proper outline. Also, I
want to be able to see recent edits and older revisions of the living
documents. OneNote supports this, but Evernote doesn't. Another drawback
of Evernote is that it's difficult to format notes, because it neither
supports style sheets (for headings, code snippets, quotes etc.) nor a
markup language. OneNote at least has style sheets.

-- Christoph

[Daniel Sekera]

for "planning" and random catching of thoughts and then organizing into a project overview I use xmind

for lists, items to inspect, actionable tasks, and as strict as i can make it simply using folders and contexts I use mlo

for "storage" or for keeping many different items corralled as reference for projects I use onenote

-- Christoph

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