I came to a point earlier this year where I realized I am spending SO much time navigating through various folders in the Finder and forget about key resources buried in various places. I also came to realize how terrible Microsoft Word is (nothing stands the test of time, terrible with long documents, etc.) Since, I’ve been on a mission to develop effective workflows to save time and stay organized. I’ve decided to transition to a plain text note-taking strategy (no more Word). I’ve downloaded and been trying to understand how several different apps can help me recreate my electronic workflow and storage system. I’m looking for feedback about a few stuck points I have been unable to resolve on my own so far.
Important caveat: I am not a coder or programmer and don’t know how to script! I’ve figured out Markdown, but that’s pretty much it. (I’m an academic in psychology.)
Set up: Macbook pro (upgraded memory and SSD, dual external monitors, treated as desktop); ipad pro (this is what I take on the go instead my macbook, which stays stationary); iphone
Apps that I’ve invested some time/money on and might be useful:
DEVONthink Pro Office & DEVONthink ToGo: I purchased but haven’t set up yet, but learned the basic, waiting for Mojave release due to issues with Mojave beta
Scrivener: I’m already obsessed!
nvAlt + 1writer: plain text note-taking on ipad and mac; synced on icloud
Keyboard maestro: Free trial downloaded but am not sure if I have the coding skills necessary to make that a worthwhile purchase.
Zotero: This was the one efficient part of my workflow that was already established. I’m not willing to give it up either. I use Zotfile to auto-rename and move all of my research material stored in Zotero to specified finder folders on my mac. I have nearly 4000 PDFs and other items indexed and referenced in Zotero but stored externally in Finder.
STUCK POINT 1:
I’m a researcher, so both creating and consuming published research (usually journal articles) is a huge part of my job and my day-to-day. I often take notes on a given article. Now all of those notes (for the most part) – which were scattered all around my hard drive – have been converted to plain text files and compiled in a single folder called “Literature notes” (about 600 items total; this is kept separate from my nvALT note database). I realized my system has been so terrible that I found many duplicate annotated PDF articles and even multiple – different – ‘note’ files for the same article. Terrible, terrible. Anyway, i’ve cleaned things up, now I have all of my literature (Zotero database) stored in a set of folders defined by ‘item type’ (i.e. journal article folder contains the bulk of the data base – almost 3000 items total. So I have literature in a small set of folders and then I have all of my literature notes stored in a separate folder. I’m concerned about combining them given the number of items. i’m afraid Finder will lag, as it’s already lagging a tiny bit with a 3000-item folder. All of my ‘literature notes’ text files have the same exact name as the corresponding PDF (or whatever type of document indexed in Zotero).
e.g. I’m reading an article. the PDF is titled “Clevenger_Schrepf et al_2013_Cancer.pdf”. I create a new text file to take notes on this article, and save it as “Clevenger_Schrepf et al_2013_Cancer.pdf.txt”. Obviously with batch renaming, this file naming approach can be modified if needed.
This is the ideal outcome I would like to develop:
- I want to be able to merely glance at a ‘literature’ item in Zotero (I’m calling everything in Zotero ‘literature’, for clarity) or in its location in the Finder and know very quickly whether or not I have taken a note on it – that is, does it have a separate text file? (note: I’m not interested in storing notes in PDF files themselves). Right now I do this by navigating to the ‘literature notes’ folder – for which the ‘search’ function is so slow that it’s useless – and scroll to find it by sight. The most obvious option is store them in the same folder, sort by name, and that’s all it takes. But with the volume of documents i’m working with, this will slow me down and makes me worried, as long as I rely on the Finder. I can’t use the Finder to search through the folder as is because it’s too slow, so that’s also why I don’t think that would work.
My ideal workflow for this would look like: - For new items: Download a new item in Zotero. Automatic renaming and moving to designated location in Finder. Open PDF from Zotero. Use shortcut to automatically create and pull up new plain text file, titled with the same title as the new PDF document.
- For existing items: Open PDF from Zotero – automatically also pull up the corresponding plain text file – if it exists already. If it doesn’t, automatically create and save new one, using same naming conventions.
One idea is to make aliases for all notes and store them together with the source PDF so at least one of my outcomes is met. but that doesn’t solve the automatic linking between PDF and note. What about using DEVONthink and/or keyboard maestro? Again, i’m new to both programs, but eager to learn.
STUCK POINT 2:
I have regular weekly meetings with coworkers, during which I take notes about several different projects that we discussed in a single meeting. On my mac, these projects are in separate folders. I’m left, though, with all of my meeting notes (text files) having information belonging to several different projects, stored in several different places.
My ideal workflow here would be:
- As I’m taking notes during a meeting, be able to somehow flag/mark different selections of text (within a single text file while editing in 1Writer on Ipad) by topic as I’m typing.
- Have an automated process set up where only the select text flagged with topic indicator gets COPIED to a different location – ideally another specified text file stored somewhere else (like in its designated project folder).
for example: one of my meeting notes might look like this:
project x:
- note1
- note2
project y:
- note3
- note4
I want to find a way to automatically move and file text for project x to a designated ‘project x’ file and storage location. Same for project y.
Help!!!