Playing around with DEVONthink since the release of DEVONthink To Go 2

redsleaves

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Since the release of DEVONthink To Go 2, I've been giving DEVONthink a trial as a notes/reference system. I think it'll make for a capable Evernote replacement for most people. I haven't made any final decisions either way, however.

What I am trying to figure out is how to best set it up as a reference filing system for my GTD practice along side Omnifocus. I know that they play together really, really well.

Though there's a part of me, a fiddly part of me, that has been thinking about implementing GTD in DEVONthink from soup to nuts using the methodology in the Evernote guide that the David Allen company publishes. I like omnifocus, but sometimes I feel like I'm working Omnifocus, not GTD, if that makes sense.

Yes, I realize it's not a list manager, but there's some appeal to working with lists manually rather than having things automated in something like Omnifocus. As in, there's less appeal to fiddle around with features and metadata and perspectives and due dates and all of that.

I guess I don't really have a question, but would be interested to hear if anyone else has done this sort of thing with Evernote, DEVONthink or something similar.

I'll probably end up sticking with OF for lists and DT as reference, but not sure yet.
 

Oogiem

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I'm a big fan of DT and use Omnifocus. I did a major reorganization of my entire system about this time last year as part of my Fall Equinox review and I've been tweaking it a bit since. It's been stable now since this Spring Equinox so I'm pretty pleased. This is my way, you may do things differently.

So the organization starts in my OF system. I have 2 single action lists, one called Miscellaneous and one for Errands. I have the following folders that contain OF projects: Active Projects, Delegated Projects, Recurring Projects Monthly, Recurring Projects Jan-Mar, Recurring Projects Apr-Jun, Recurring Projects Jul-Sep, Recurring Projects Oct-Dec, Someday/Maybe Projects and Checklists. Within the Someday/Maybe folder are ONLY projects that I have either started but had to put on hold for a while or ones that I really do want to work on within the next year. Tehy are also not projects that are going to repeat year after year.

I use the note field of the project to designate where any project support material lives. It can be in DT, or in Finder or both. I have basically duplicated structures within Finder and DT. Whether an item lives in the finder or in DT as a reference or project support item is usually based on length and what app I need to use to open/view/use it.

Within the finder I have a folder under Documents that contains my real active stuff. That's because the Documents folder in the Mac tends to get cluttered with App related stuff that I find frustrating to deal with on a regular basis. My main folder has the following sub-folders: Active_Projects, DEVONThink_Databases, File_Cabinet, _File_Cabinet, _File_Cabinet, _File_Cabinet, 2016_Oogie_Pictures, and then 5 folders of old stuff marked with the suffix _Needs_Cleaning. With a terabyte of data it's taking me a long time to totally clean and re-organize everything. I'm plugging away at that backlog slowly and expect to finish by the end of this year. Within Active_Projects I have 5 numbered folders that match the ones in my DT database described below.

Within DT I have 6 main databases: encrypted info that I need to keep private, my Notebook that is synced to all my portable devices, the Notebook Archive of older stuff I don't need now but don't want to delete, the reference file cabinet of documents that are imported into DT, the reference index of documents that are indexed in DT. There are issues with indexing vs importing that I won't go into and I am not happy about how DT keeps things updated but it's working to about the 80% level in terms of keeping my DT index DB accurate enough.

My Notebook database is where all the current active project support material lives as well as misc notes and stuff. I have several folders/groups within it, Active Projects, Equipment and Software, GTD Someday Maybe Projects, and Reference. Within each of those folders are folders/groups of the documents related to that item. I have 5 numbered folders within Active Projects whose names are 1 Personal Update Files, 2 Farm Update Files, 3 Action Support, 4 Shopping List Pictures, 5 Sheep Sales. They are numbered so they sort to the top and I can get to them easily. Within those are documents that get updated or referenced really regularly. Things like within the personal folder my list of books read this year, my weight lifting progress and goals, within the farm one I have things like how much hay we've used by month and to which animals, meat price list, sausage batch names, LambTracker Scoreboard data and so on.

The GTD Someday Maybe Projects folder is special because that is where I have several single plain text documents in DT that are the lists of the several thousand possible projects I may work on someday. I no longer keep them in OF and I don't always review them every week but having a single screen of items is faster for me to review than hundreds of OF projects. I have a note for sewing projects, one for knitting projects, one for farm projects and so on. This is also where I put things like lists of books to read, movies to watch that are not on Netflix or Amazon video yet and so on. This is in the DT database that syncs to all my portable devices because I want to be able to review that at any time.

As I am working within OF I may have an action like: "Flowchart BVest code" in the context of inside by myself. It has a note that says "Hard copy code in file folder BVest, electronic in folder BVest and notes in DT BVest folder" So I can grab the pieces I need to work on it. In that case I find that having both a hard copy of the code to read as well as some other portions up on my screen at the same time helps. The only time things become tricky is when I decide to move a project from active to someday/maybe.

I've found that it now works pretty seamlessly to manage the stuff and still allow me to get things done.

I can explain a lot more but this is the overview.
 

redsleaves

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Oogiem I was hoping you would reply. I'm envious that you have figured out a stable system. I think I'm due for a major white boarding session to get my own system sorted out.
 
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