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Life inside one big text file
Merlin Mann | Aug 17 2005
O’Reilly Network Weblogs: Living in text files Giles takes one of the biggest, geekiest leaps you can—moving all of his stuff into a single big-ass plain text file.
This ambitious strategy—usually only whispered about among the lower geek echelons in which I dwell—seems to require a lot of confidence, planning, and familiarity with your favorite flavor of text editor. Mine’s currently TextMate, but, given what I’ve seen people like Danny do with Vim (and its incremental search-on-steroids, scripting functions, and endless shortcuts and configurability), this really reignites my resolve to hit the book and thumb through all my bookmarks again. So. Questions for people who are already living in one text file:
Spill whatever you like about your one-file system (and, curious folks, feel free to ask questions). Related Stuff 74 Comments
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 The four big advantages I've...Submitted by mg (not verified) on August 17, 2005 - 1:58pm.
The four big advantages I've found in a single todo.txt for eveything that can be digital are: portability, speed, minimal context-switching, and a fast weekly review. Portability: I have a Mac at home, Windows at work. When I tried depending on software for todos, I found that I missed utility X on one platform or the other. (X was usually Quicksilver.) Speed: Any editor with an incremental search function makes Spotlight, Quicksilver, even Google feel slow. Context-switiching: I found GTD @Contexts as separate files less than helpful; I tried them for a while, and was always flitting between the files, the way I had with other, pre-GTD approaches. When I flit like this, the trivia in short term memory that I'm trying to record or track is lost to the more-fun-to-think-about stuff that's buzzing in the background. Weekly review: I spend more time filing the paper I have to keep for one reason or another than I do noting my progress for the week. The review proper, with list updates and additions to about 30 projects takes just a couple minutes of typing time, which leaves plenty of time for contemplation. If canonical @Contexts lists as separate files are a big win for you, or if the thought of having your whole life in one file is distracting, or if you need GUI cues to find things, a single todo.txt will be be a net lose for you. To Jason's point: Most of the time I'm only looking at few lines of text, a single list, a single blog post; I use whitespace liberally to minimize visual noise. Once in a while I get overwhelmed by what's in the active task portion of the file. This is a sign that I'm trying to do too much, and should ask for help, or delegate, or drop things, and say no more often. Goes without saying perhaps, but: a good fixed-width font (ProFont and Courier are both good; Courier New is serviceable) is essential for going the plain-text route; eventually, you'll want to put something in proper columns. Speaking of columns: cal, on the UNIX command line, produces simple, nicely formatted monthly and annual calendar views. » POSTED IN:
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