DEVONthink as an aid for someone with cognitive impairment?

[FallingSparrow]

A tl;dr, this post grew long. Is DT3 well-suited to help bring order to and maintain order of the information organization needs of a small household when the primary user suffers with physical disability not limited to moderate cognitive disability. Or would a more modest good ol’ fashioned thoughtful folder alone approach with some help from tagging and Hazel be the better option to bring order and to maintain it. In other words, does DT3 cost more mental energy than it is worth for someone with moderate cognitive disability? A broad question, but that is the best tl;dr I have come up with.

Thank you to everyone who is reading this. This is a post that has been asked here and elsewhere many times in one form or another. I’ve spent a more than a little time over the years reading through this forum, when the organizational bug grabs me. But during that time I was in a mixed OS environment so DTx was not a solution I thought was reasonable for me. I’ve always appreciated the balance of candor and care I’ve seen demonstrated here.

A few things have changed since then, and I hope this post is not so redundant as may think.

First, I have transitioned over to a full Apple environment. That’s is the least exciting change I’ve been through, as lovely as it has been.

The other change has been ever increasingly diminished health which impacts my cognitive abilities rather directly and in specific ways. (Please excuse the typos or errors you find in this post; I am very prone to drop words when I type even when I reread the text a dozen times. This doesn’t happen when handwriting which is interesting. I am also given to typing homophones and being blind to them. Again an interesting tidbit).

It is the second change that has prompted me to reconsider DT3 more than the first. I’ve always enjoyed organization in theory, but not so much in practice. My ad hoc approaches worked for a long time well enough, at least to get by. That’s not the case any longer.

Things have been slipping through the cracks as my health has gotten worse. Not having had the best of habits prior to this has not helped. As I struggle more with organization, that creates some stress which increases my cognitive load, leading to feeling worse thus more things slipping through the cracks. An unfortunate feedback loop.

So I have been thinking slowly through how DT3 may be able to help manage some of the friction of trying to get things into order. I appreciate the sentiment that DT3 can be as simple as you want it to be. And I also appreciate the opinion that the UI isn’t the most ‘intuitive’. I am working through the wonderful cost free Take Control of DEVONthink 3 text now. I am considering going through David Sparks Field Guide to DEVONthink 3 as I make this decision.

The good news is that I have a modest amount of incoming information to manage compared to most here, especially as I scale back things due to health. The bad news–what I do have now is a pretty big mess.

So my question, which is likely unfair to ask a group of strangers, is around accessibility and feasibility for DT3 to assist me to get my electronic life into some order. This is a long prologue. I appreciate the patience of any who are still reading this. I also understand if the moderators find this post ill suited to the forum.

I could give more biographical context for what I am (not) managing, but in short. I am married without children. I own a home. I own an automobile. My wife works and owns a very small business. I do contract work currently as I see fit. We have bank accounts, other financial accounts, all relatively modest in number and size and complexity, the usual influx of paperwork and information is pretty typical for an at times middle-income small US household. That’s the extent of the essentials other than increasing loads of paperwork and information regarding my health. I think many here can get a sense of what I need to manage.

I’ve committed to getting this order. I’ve two general approaches which are not exclusive. My primary issue currently other than the lack of mental acuity to hunker down and grind through getting things set-up is how much effort it will take for me to keep it running. How much effort does it take for an item upon receipt to be properly managed? The less mental and physical effort in the day to day is worth paying some upfront mental and physical effort. I know this is a fact right now as I have go through a few other such exercises. (I recently brought order my extant email accounts by setting up an email server and establishing a lot of rules and filters that manage most of what I was failing to do before with my email and it has been a great success.)

Approach 1:

Create a well structured folder system.

Use a tool like Hazel to assist in getting documents named properly, filed properly, OCRed, tagged, etc.

Get what I need back out through smart folders, a finder replacement tool, or when in doubt navigating through folders.

I have already begun embarking on this.

Approach 2:

Pretty much approach 1 with less effort by Hazel and smart folders, but with DT3 databases and indices as appropriate. And there is DTTG.

Why ‘complicate’ the matter by adding in DT3? In a word, tons of embodied knowledge among persons more experienced, healthy, and competent than I am. Decision fatigue can be exhausting for me. So throwing my lot in with DT3 immediately provides a lot of handholding and guidance. And of course anyone who has been around productivity ‘nerd’ circles knows how many love to min / max to the point of diminishing returns. A grace my situation has given me is I don’t have the energy to really care that much about that sort of thing anymore. Hence my post with some irony . . .

A broad question and arguably an impossible one to answer, but I thought I might try to find some help.

Truly, thanks again. The forum has been incredible over the last few months as it has given me ideas for kicking off this process and completing others. You never know who you are helping years or a decade later.

[BLUEFROG]

Welcome @FallingSparrow!

The bad news–what I do have now is a pretty big mess.

And what needs to happen with that mess? Does it all need to be organized now or (1) in small batches or (2) as the need arises? DEVONthink’s search can compensate for a lack of hierarchical grouping.

How much effort does it take for an item upon receipt to be properly managed?

Define managed.

---

Here is a fact: If you can use the Finder, you can use DEVONthink. And it can be used in very simple or complex ways. It depends on the need and inclination of the individual.

[rkaplan]

As a long-term DT3 user and even longer-term physician who among other things treats patients with brain injuries, this is an intriguing question. It would be a great solution if it were workable.

Unfortunately my answer is a resounding no. Devonthink is an incredibly useful and capable app - but in no way is its user interface helpful for someone with a cognitive impairment. Full stop.

There are argumentgs for paper vs. digital solution to your question. But it’s really hard for me to imagine Devonthink as part of either one. You need a much simpler solution.

Or alternatively - a caregiver might manage a Devonthink database of patient needs and then use it to either manually or with automation create printed lists for the cognitively impaired person. But I would not suggest having that cognitively impaired person manage and use the DT3 front end.

[BLUEFROG]

@rkaplan

But I would not suggest having that cognitively impaired person manage and use the DT3 front end.

Without knowing specifics of the individual case, I can’t make an assessment about anyone’s capabilities, infirm or not.

Here’s a simple view of a basic database…

Note I used larger UI fonts and the Navigate sidebar could be hidden as well.

Whether this is beyond this individual’s reach is impossible to say without their explicit input.
@FallingSparrow ?

[FallingSparrow]

@BLUEFROG

And what needs to happen with that mess? Does it all need to be organized now or (1) in small batches or (2) as the need arises?

Thank you for your reply. I wavered over whether to put some high-level requirements in my post or not.

The answer is both. It would be iterative for sure. For instance, just getting all my files into one ‘place’ as an approximate single source of truth would be great. Right now, I have files in multiple locations some of which my Mac Mini is unaware of (I think I may be unaware of a few as well!).

So I’ve been moving all those files into my Mac Mini as I locate those places.

So that is some basic high level organization that is happening right now and will take some time. I would NOT just dump all of that in DT3 based on the reading and listening I have done on DT.

AND, there are immediate needs / wants that would benefit from some more well defined organization now. For instance, I am looking at a few years worth of medical data along with accompanying notes and research. I know where all that stuff is, but it distributed across different devices, health practitioner medical portals which don’t talk to one another, etc. Based on what I have read and listened to about DT, my health stuff seems fit for a DT database. I could start dropping all of that in a database without trying to be overly fiddly now about the categorization and reap some immediate benefit. As you state:

@BLUEFROG

DEVONthink’s search can compensate for a lack of hierarchical grouping.

Over time, if I want to add some structure to these files and information I could, but I could start benefitting from DT now. Perhaps I find out, that DT removes some of the fiddly stuff I would be tempted to do if approaching this from a well-defined process from the beginning.

@BLUEFROG

Define managed.

OK, a use case. I think a lot of the work will be of the form of this use case. Take poorly organized historic information, place it in an appropriate DB in DT, then as I bring in more current data to interact with the historic data, slowly bring some more organizational form to the historic data, if needed. I’ll stay with the medical / health topic. This is not necessarily true about my case. I don’t want to cause medical record grief here.

I’ve a genetic mutation that contributes to my condition. Some new well peer-reviewed research shows that certain synthetic vitamins can negatively impact persons with such a genetic mutation. This paper or review hits my email health inbox. I quickly review the paper and decide it merits possible further consideration.

I would like to get that paper (it is a PDF) into the right place for further review along with other such information. My own copy of my genetic testing results, other such information regarding that mutation, my current supplementation schedule, etc. I would like to do this as easily as possible. The harder it is for me properly get that information together, the more likely the information ends being siloed and forgotten about.

Some of this is a matter of discipline of course. But I’d love to be able to capture that paper with a sharesheet or the like and have it minimally land in an DT inbox, ideally it just gets placed into the proper group in DT tagged to let me know to consider reading it within a timeframe.

I have been giving readwise / reader a trial to see if some ease of sharing to a single place would increase my likelihood of actually engaging with saved material, whether reading it or dismissing it. And it has worked well. I’d like to take that sort of process and apply it outside of readwise / reader. Readwise knows nothing about the data DT could, I wouldn’t want it to know those data. But I would be happy for DT to know about them and help me keep these data together.

Since all those data are together in DT, I can now share that more easily with a physician who I have an appointment with in a month. I would be able review those data and make the appropriate edits to my running notes about that specific issue. In this case, it could be as simple as, I read in a paper that synthetic biotin has been shown to contribute to hypermethylation. And I realize I have been eating a lot of fortified wheat products lately and it seems to have coincided with my current bout of insomnia. If I remove those foods from diet and replace it with unfortified wheat, here is the impact to my nutritional profile based on my historic cronometer data. My physician knows a prior restricted diet had unintended negatives consequences because she nor I realized I would be dreadfully low in B12 in my execution of the diet.

I take down my physicians recommendations. I am likely recording our discussion. And I will make some further voice notes right after. Those get immediately transcribed through a LLM I have implemented into PDFs. The audio files and the transcripts then are ‘easily’ shared back into DT where I can capture the appropriate information on my running note regarding that condition.

@BLUEFROG

Here is a fact: If you can use the Finder, you can use DEVONthink. And it can be used in very simple or complex ways. It depends on the need and inclination of the individual.

That is what I understand. One the immediate strengths of DT is letting it do the OCRing on some of my historic files. Many do not have a text layer. I’ve considered trying DT3 for offloading that workflow alone and count everything else as a win.

I will again highlight your comment (trying to figure out to use the quote feature).

@BLUEFROG

DEVONthink’s search can compensate for a lack of hierarchical grouping.

This is what I think is next big help even is used as simply as possible initially that DT can offer me.

Thanks again. I don’t know how you manage to provide so much help to so many persons here.

[rkaplan]

@BLUEFROG

Note I used larger UI fonts and the Navigate sidebar could be hidden as well.

No doubt Apple provides all sorts of options to accommodate those with physical impairments, including both visual and hearing impairments.

There also exist Mac apps which go beyond this to help individuals with cognitive impairments - such as communication devices which use a simple graphical menu.

While it is true that DT3 can use MacOS features so that it is accessible to those with a visual impairment, I cannot think of any DT3 features that would be particularly of help to aid someone with a cognitive impairment.

If the goal is to help someone with a cognitijve impairment remember tasks or easily find information, I think there are much simpler and more helpful tools to do that job.

[FallingSparrow]

Wow thank you for answering especially given your background.

TBIs are strange. I had a few in my life and the one I had a decade ago or so was the straw that broke the camel’s back as it were.

It immediately changed who I was profoundly. Thankfully given some time and more importantly the right drug therapy I recovered a great deal, but not 100%. Exercise tolerance improved little. Typing will never be the same. That’s one of the odder things as I noted in my original post.

My former capacity to learn new things quickly and well was changed but not globally. I had a high ability for language acquisition. That changed a lot. The languages I already had some fluency in I can maintain and improve in and still pick up languages adjacent to them. For instance, getting my mind around Danish wasn’t awful. But trying to learn anything outside the PIE family is now a near impossibility. It’s just not worth the effort and at times pain to do so, physically.

My maths took a nose dive. I did graduate work in maths. At the time of the injury I did a lot tutoring through graduate maths. Some of the work I did prior to my injury made my head throb even after my recovery. But something like undergraduate maths is not a big deal, its more difficult now (I don’t really do a lot of work in math anymore but it’s not incomprehensible and I can understand and use all sorts of math from the calculus through matrix algebra.)

A big decline which didn’t improve much was my short term accuracy and ability with context free information. Strings of numbers, strings of seemingly unrelated nouns. That I can make a lot strings match a pattern helps, but that ability tanked. Logging into systems is awful without something like 1Password. I was never great with such things. I could never really remember people’s phone numbers, addresses, etc. Digital tools really helped here, but after my injury forget it, I usually do. But the digital tools address that.

Another decline is simply my ability to maintain concentration on mental tasks which I don’t find interesting and terribly rote and are what I call ‘fiddly’. I was never strong in those areas. While I placed very high in standardized tests throughout school, I would get relatively poorer marks in something like the ASVAB, which tested to my weaknesses prior the injury, those weaknesses just got much worse.

As I mentioned I had pretty poor organizational habits prior to my injury. I could compensate through some native cognitive abilities. I could remember pretty where I read something, if I couldn’t just repeat it from memory, this was persistent across tons of texts, I knew where something was in a heap of texts. These abilities atrophied a lot. I did graduate work in the humanities with some of the barest of source and citation methods.

Outside the typing and related to the above, was that anything that needs some a lot mental rote attention just became very difficult and incredibly error prone. Key entering numbers, opening mail, writing the check (this is going back in time) and mailing the check became strangely very difficult. I have the money, I have the check, I am going to go past the mailbox. One or all of those steps I would forget or have a lot of strange aversion toward or make a fatal error in. Now with electronic document management that becomes more complicated to do manually. It’s tedious. I don’t like it. And it’s at times painful. And very error prone, which creates a loop. I should have automated a lot of this earlier. I didn’t. I’d rather do pretty much anything else other than that sort of thing. It’s more mentally exhausting and at times painful than reading Kant for me.

Auto bill pay was a life saver. Any of these rotes tasks I can automate helps a lot.

Now recently this has all gotten even worse, since my physical health has tanked. Where’s that surgery order Dr. Sowieso ordered that I am supposed to call back for the fourth time and try to schedule? Oh its in that mountain of email. Found it. Let me call that surgery center. They are asking me questions I don’t really understand and I don’t know why they and my doctor don’t figure this out between them. I think I made some notes on this though, let me try to find those. It’s in Apple Notes, I didn’t record that session I guess. I figured I wouldn’t be involved in any of this at that point anyway. The scheduling assistant wants me to call back when I figure this out. Time to take a nap. I’d rather do pretty much do anything else. The next day I figure this out spending more than hour going through a similar process. A week later, I find out I’ve missed email that got buried in a spam from my insurance company that they require some prior notification from me for this, so that is likely going to set back the process at least 10 days.

The email situation I have resolved in the most part. I only feel ridiculous for not having done that sooner. Now, I am wondering if I cannot bring similar improvements to the rest of my digital life with the help of DT. I am currently able to dedicate more time / energy to such an endeavor than I typically could because of my more diminished capacity. I’d love to get something working better now that make future entry and upkeep less painful.

Regarding digital and analog or physical. You are right there. I blend them. I use physical real world anchors a lot and tie them to digital resources. The HVAC needs maintained. I am never going to remember all those steps. I have those somewhere documented. To trigger that when my reminder goes off for instance, either I have to do it right then, or place an anchor. Because I am going to forget that tomorrow, or if I snooze the reminder I may keep snoozing it. So I just put some artifacts of the process in my way. The air filter and some tools right where I am going to have to walk over them tomorrow.

Ideally, I wouldn’t hope I find that HVAC process template when I try in spotlight. But I do. I might have to check some emails account formerly. Maybe it’s somewhere Spotlight doesn’t index.

So I am have decided to bring sense to this. Does DT offer some structure and quick wins over going through this backlog in a more manual process?

Again I appreciate your candor. And @BLUEFROG is correct. My TBI is utterly apparent to me. Some people (until they read my typing or see my chaos at home or on my computer) don’t believe I suffer much since my ability to speak, think extemporaneously regarding subject I have known well, etc. remains pretty high unless I have exerted myself too much, in which I case I am not around others.

[kewms]

There are a number of task managers and such that claim to be designed for neurodiverse people. (Perhaps @rkaplan has recommendations?) That might be a more productive direction than DT specifically.

[BLUEFROG]

You’re very welcome and thank you for the encouragement!

We are well known for taking a very ecumenical stance on software. We also don’t claim DEVONthink is the right tool for every task and every person. If another app works better for you, we would certainly not dissuade you (or anyone) from using that other app.

However, there is also plenty of mythology about what DEVONthink is and especially “who it’s for”, both often misguided and misunderstood perspectives. DEVONthink is not inherently difficult to use and much of the experience is what you bring to it. Here are a few (of many) “types of people” using DEVONthink: stay at home parents, students of all ages (not just PhD and collegiate ones), artists/writers/musicians/cooks/arts and crafts people…, clergy and parishoners, medical/legal/and all manner of business people, genealogists and historians (professional and amateur), etc.

You (and others) may be surprised to find we have more than a handful of blind customers. Even with Accessibility features enabled, I think many people would say DEVONthink is “too hard to use” in these cases. But they are using it personally and professionally, including in business and law enforcement. I think it’s a testament to their abilities, Apple’s technologies, and that DEVONthink is accessible (no pun intended) to more people than you may imagine.

Perhaps Apple Mail, Notes, Reminders, Messages, and Calendar are all you need for everyday things. In fact, I believe most people generally need nothing more complicated for daily tasks. But DEVONthink is not in the same circle as those apps nor are they document and information management apps.

Could you use the Finder? Sure you can. But your organizational approach in the Finder can almost always be used in DEVONthink too. And DEVONthink offers a suite of tools that extends its abilities beyond what the Finder can do. Do you need to know and use all those tools to run DEVONthink? 100% no and don’t fall for that kind of thinking. But the tools are there, at the ready, should they be needed at some point.

At a minimum, you could create a database, import some documents, and get a feel for it if works and makes sense to you.

PS: I am clearly not in Sales, nor do we believe in trying to sell people things they don’t need. But I also don’t want to dismiss your case without a consideration of possibilities. Ultimately, you are the only one who can decide if it fits and feels right.

[FallingSparrow]

Thank you. I hope to find some interesting suggestions.

Though I know I have made a muddle of this myself here perhaps, but I think there are distinctions between a few things: task management, energy management, time management, and information management.

The first three items tend to overlap or are used often synonymously. Whether the distinctions matter people can argue over. I tend to focus on energy management nowadays. But they are distinct from information management. And frankly I struggle with all four to differing degrees, but its the information management piece I am wondering about DT3 strengths over against something like a folder system with some help form Hazel and perhaps another utility like Hookmark.

I’ve had greater and lesser success managing tasks. But its the proliferation of information that is my concern now. My email was a mess. I had 50k email (not counting sent items) which were just sitting various accounts. Searching worked OK. But my poor management of that email when search failed (or I didn’t know I should search for something) left me with little ability to know if I were missing anything. I knew I likely was and would find out from time to time. I spent some time thinking through migrating my email to my own server using various domains and rules to sort all of that mess out. And today my unified inbox is empty. Categories like: residence x, legal, auto y, etc. are properly populated with historic data. And a lot of mail just routes where it needs to without my attention or energy. And now I only have 6k or so email backlogged to run some rules over to sort out the balance those historical data. Most of it is garbage.

And the upshot now is I don’t hate checking my email at all. So the task, energy, or time management of keeping up with my email has become much easier because the information there is much more reasonably managed.

The success of getting my email under some reasonable control (along with a few other things) provided the motivation for this exercise. And I am making progress, just wondering about the tools to approximate something like what I accomplished with my email.

I didn’t mention in my essentials needs that I have historical nice to have things to manage which are much more voluminous. For instance, research and writing that I continue at a reduced capacity nowadays, but I would love to have wrangled a little better. Since that is a love of mine, I always kept better care of it.

[Amontillado]

Don’t let anyone discourage you from using the tools and methods that you like. Your posts are intellectual and coherent. Devonthink might be the perfect tool for you. There are other options, too.

It would be great to hear what systems you find helpful and the methods that work best.

[rkaplan]

@FallingSparrow

Again I appreciate your candor. And @BLUEFROG is correct. My TBI is utterly apparent to me. Some people (until they read my typing or see my chaos at home or on my computer) don’t believe I suffer much since my ability to speak, think extemporaneously regarding subject I have known well, etc. remains pretty high unless I have exerted myself too much, in which I case I am not around others.

I stand corrected. Initially when I read the inquiry regarding “someone with a cognitive impairment” I presumed you were inquiring somewhat generically about a relative or friend developing age-associated memory difficulties. I see instead the inquiry is for yourself - someone who has very substantial cognitive and writing abilities.

Clearly your situation as described is unique (as all people are) - so you need to decide what tools work best for you.

[FallingSparrow]

Oh I don’t know if you are corrected. I was probably long-winded and confusing more than likely. And I take your cautions. As should others trying to set up DT3 to help someone else to make sure it doesn’t add complexity to who they are trying to help. My physician says while I may the ability to do certain things, I should rest my brain more regardless. In my cognitive evaluations, while I have declines for me, my therapist says she is envious for CERTAIN scores. Others are pretty abysmal. I know other people with TBI who have more significant global impacts and your words would make a lot sense of them.

I’ve had a pretty good week, so I am throwing some energy at this.

Ultimately, I hope to capitalize on this relatively time of physical rest due to my physical health issues to use my energy to get some organizational stuff done. And I wonder if throwing some of that energy up front at DT3 will make maintaining a well organization file system less difficult in the future. It’s the upkeep cost of both getting things into a well organized system and then getting them back out that is my primary problem I am trying to solve.

What I have (not) been doing so far has been a disaster.

Thanks again for your help.

[Ulli]

Nobody besides yourself could figure out the best solution for your individual needs.
But I think it might help to share some individual approaches where you might find the best solution for yourself.

I, for example, started with DT several years ago. I scanned every piece of paper on my ScanSnap (currently an iX1600) I got and kept and “threw” it into a Database that I named "Old Papers).
There is no structure; there is simply a five-digit number of PDFs inside, and if I need something, the search inside DT shows all relevant data.
The scan took several years, but it was worth it.
Sometime in the future, I might access that database and organize everything into a structure.
Still, I do not need it because if I search for the Invoice for the plumper I received six years ago, I get it with “invoice plumper 2018” in the search bar.
Since I use DT, I work a little differently with everything I receive. I need these current papers for my business, legal tasks, taxes, and so on.
I set up a different database (“Documents”), where I have a “normal” structure with groups (as I also use DTTG, I could not use smartgroups there).
Every piece of paper I receive goes onto my ScanSnap.
I have set up several predefined setups. So, if I receive an invoice, I scan it with the Preset “Invoice” (which I can easily choose on the ScanSnap’s display).
I have Hazel in the Background.
The scan is going into a Finder folder named “Invoice,” and Hazel is adding a Tag “invoice” to the PDF and moving it into the DT Inbox.
I have a SmartRule running there, adding the “Invoice” into an Inbox-Group “Invoice.”
I check this group frequently and add the Invoice with the Script coming with DT to my OmniFocus Inbox, where I set a Date to pay it.
The Entry within OmniFocus contains a link to the Document inside DT.
When the time comes, I pay the Invoice and change the Tag to “paid Invoice,” which removes the Invoice with another SmartRule from the Invoice Group and places it inside my Documents database.
If it is an invoice I need for my taxes, I simply add the Tag “Taxes” and a Tag for the relevant year to the Document. Then, I can use either a search for the Tag or a (in my case, temporarily) SmartGroup to get all relevant documents to do my taxes.

I do this with all the relevant documents I receive.
Also, I have a database called “E-Mail,” where I import all relevant e-mails and can do the same on them.
Every upcoming task I have to remember is going into OmniFocus, which clears my brain from the need to recognize it and takes care of it so I can do it in time.

The combination of some level of automation (Special Setups at the Scanner, Hazel, SmartRules, Scripts) is helping me a lot to simplify my life and have fewer slips of things I must remember.

While you could do it within DT, I use additional Obsidian as a database for all relevant thoughts and data I want to remember.
All of this, for example my latest blood examinations, or letters from doctors (to stay in that example), are linked from DT towards Obsidian, with relevant Annotations showing up there.
You could also link within Obsidian, building up a pretty good database with all relevant information and its links to each other.

Also, I use Readwise to read everything important that I get from the Internet or via e-mail.
The big advantage is that I can annotate there, get these annotations (data) into Obsidian, with links back to the original paper, and “print” the Document as a PDF with the Highlights into DT.

[DTLow]

@Ulli

I think it might help to share some individual approaches where you might find the best solution for yourself.

You might have missed the point about “cognitive impairment” : )

I also scan all my paperwork; I use my iPad camera

All input is directed to the Global Inbox
Not a Hazel user, but an applescript assists me with processing the records; name, tags, filing, …

[Ulli]

@DTLow

You might have missed the point about “cognitive impairment”

Why do you think so!?
It is in the title and expressively mentioned in several OP postings.
So why do you think I might have missed that point?

Or do you imply that someone who is “cognitively impaired” is sitting somewhere in the corner and not able to do anything other than sitting there?

The OP seems to be able to write pretty good posts, and I think he can also use at least some of the ways others are mentioning here to improve his handling of his stuff.
If you had read his postings, you would know that he is, among other things, looking for a way to improve his reliability in remembering Tasks and doing them when they are needed.
Therefore, a good Task Manager (like many, but in my case, OmniFocus) could be a game-changer, especially if he has the links to the relevant documents.
Around that Task Manager, he could build his Data in the way I mentioned, with the importance of an integrated approach, where you could get data from one app to the other and have links between relevant items.

[DTLow]

@Ulli

Or do you imply that someone who is “cognitively impaired” is sitting somewhere in the corner and not able to do anything other than sitting there?

Not at all
I’m also sharing some individual approaches with using Devonthink
but more tailored for cognitive impairment disability

[FallingSparrow]

Thank you. I love seeing how other people wrangle and manage things. I appreciate you taking the time to share some of your workflow.

I am ok with a little fiddly upfront cost if it save me a lot of fiddling on the day to day.

Your workflow is probably a bit more disjointed to my eyes than I could use, but parts of it certainly are helpful.

As I mentioned above readwise has been an experiment for me which was a proof-of- concept of sorts I would like to no longer use if DT3 could approximate some of it, which I think it can.

Thanks again.

[FallingSparrow]

This is one part of the workflow I haven’t decided whether DT3 is involved or not, how to scan things.

I have a brother scanner around here somewhere! But man using an iPhone is just a breeze. Sure the scanner is more appropriate for certain use cases, but I am looking to make things as simple as possible.

I’ve historic documents, some with text layers some without. That DT3 uses Abby which people seem to love, I was figuring DT3 is at a minimum a great way to get great OCR engine that even if requires me to drag and drop without setting up automation rules, would be wonderful.

I’ve never used Applescript and may never. I had been looking a little bit at some examples. This is another reason the DT3 has a lot of value I think. If I find there is an automation that is pretty basic or seems to be common, someone here has probably already done it. As I said above, having a very bright and competent user base is incredible, especially when the more competent users love to support those of us who will probably never be so.

On a related note, and to compliment this forum and DEVONtechnologies a little more, one thing I kept running into over the past while as I have slowly considered using DT3 was a thread that this community and the company having rude and unhelpful approach to support.

That is entirely odd to me given what I have seen here lurking for a longish time and having done a little more concentrated crawling through the forums. I took a lot of my education in the German-speaking-world, maybe I am just more comfortable with people being Deutsch direkt!

[FallingSparrow]

So spoke with a guy today who knows me fairly well, my strengths and my limitations. He didn’t know to what state of disorder I had been in.

He’s on the other side of 60. He has worked in IT, database stuff for a while. He does some work for people to help them get their IT lives in order who wouldn’t be able to afford such help, natural or non-natural persons.

I laid out my situation. With the help of this group I laid out some my goals and my concerns. I asked what he thought would be a good solution.

He presented a generic solution he thought would be a good fit. Some must haves, some nice to haves. He then said here is what he would use without respect to cost and complexity as a starting point. Most of his solutions both in his opinion and mine where too costly or complex to implement.

Almost all the features he suggested DT3 Pro covers. He hadn’t heard of it. We went through some of DT3’s features. He thought it was a great solution if it were in fact stable and it would be supported over time.

His only caveat outside of the above and this wasn’t a me thing, was having the files in a DB rather than being indexed by it. I am not stating this as to open that argument.

So I think I be purchasing DT3 pro. I hope not be to a nuisance on the board.

Thanks to everyone for letting me think aloud a little and helping me reach this conclusion.