Hey everyone,
I am seeking feedback on how people track what perhaps would be considered someday/maybe items. Let me give you a few examples. I come across an article about the latest AMD Ryzen CPUs that looks interesting. I think to myself I should read that, but I can’t right now. I want to “save it for later”. Likewise I run across a new kitchen gadget I “think” I may want to purchase, not this very moment but possibly in the future. Lastly I come across a video on the web about how Tobasco sauce is made and I being a hot sauce fan and interested in how things are made would like to watch this later when I have time.
How do you track things like this? Clearly none of these things need to be done on any kind of timeframe. In fact it doesn’t matter if I do them at all. There are many ways to save these things for later, YouTube has a watch later list, Pocket and Pinboard allows you to save links for later reading, Amazon has wishlists… I could go on and on. However that as you can Imagine can get unwheldy and add quite a bit of overhead managment.
I started creating a Folder in OmniFocus called Someday/maybe and under that creating specific lists for “To Buy”, “To Watch”, “To Read” etc… I am not sure if this is the best approach and before I go full on with it, I would like to ask the collective knowledge of the crowd what they think and what works for them.
I settled on Pocket, since it works in Brave browser, Safari, etc. I tag entries with what they are related to. I rarely go back and read/watch things, but it seems to placate my need to bookmark things for later.
For Amazon, I just add them to my default private list. For YouTube, I add them to my Watch Later list. Much like Pocket, I rarely go back and look at my Amazon list or my Watch Later list, but as I said, it makes me feel better.
I use the “Read later with Reeder” feature to save articles (Reeder4 RSS reader). It’s similar to Instapaper but is stored locally and synced via iCloud.
Travel checklists, interesting quotes, trivia, recipes, rarely used bookmarks etc. go in Google Keep.
For things I just stumble across, I tend to use Pocket. The danger with Pocket is that for me it has turned into a “read-never” service… Eternally optimistic that I some day will find the time to get back to it
Amazon’s “Wish list” is nice, and I do miss that feature in the iOS AppStore.
For movies / series, I have no solution. Netflix is the worst - you scroll by something you might be interested in, and if you don’t immediately add it your list, it may well be gone forever. Other streaming services has the same problem, always pushing the “new”.
I have numerous lists in AnyList because it is easy to share these lists with my wife — we both use Alexa to add things to various lists: shopping, errands, chores, prep for travel (a new list for each trip), movies to see, streaming to watch. For steaming we have one list with a category for each service (Netflix, Prime, etc.).
For all my personal lists I use OmniFocus — maybe/someday, museums and exhibits, books — but I’m thinking of switching this use over to Todoist because I like the way Todoist captures things from iOS and MacOS. And I like Todoists’ sub tasks, sections and (maybe someday) kanban.
I used Pocket for a very long time and gave up because I was never getting around to reading all the articles that interested me — it turned into a “probably never” list.
Books to buy: Either my amazon “save for later” list below my shopping cart or a list in the category “Personal/Shopping” in Things
Books to read: a note in Bear with a rough schedule for each year
Movies to watch: letterboxd.com (I don’t actively maintain my Netflix watch list, but occasionally add an item to it, when browsing the interface)
Series to watch (with a rough manually added duration estimation): Notion with IMDB bookmark links that pull the rich link preview incl. the cover as a link block. (I’d wish leterboxd would incl. series.)
Audiobooks: Audible and Book Player
Podcast: Solely Overcast, if it’s only available on Spotify, I won’t listen to it
YouTube: I mainly watch what’s on my subscription list. If it is something else, I’ll leave the tab open until I find time or I’ll add it to Pocket
Looks really messy I guess I should simplify this…
For me, the fewer apps, buckets, and the more streamed-lined the better. I have only three buckets/apps for the things you noted above:
Articles I may read, webpages to possibly review, a YouTube video to possibly watch, archived documents, receipts, manuals, research etc., go into DevonThink.
Books I am going to read (no may) go into a reading list in Reminders. Same goes for things I may wish to buy–I have a “shopping” list, a gifts list, etc. If I am definitely going to read or buy something with a date in mind it goes in Reminders with a date.
All work related projects, tasks, and related communications are in Asana.
I track it in my task manager. I use Things 3 so I just create an Area for Lists and then Have a Project for Books, Movies, Music etc. I like it because I always have my task manager accessible so as soon as someone recommends something I put it there and I can add a note about who recommended it and why I thought it sounded interesting.
Shopping I have a Shopping list in Omnifocus. I have a Keyboard Maestro shortcut that fills in the title and puts the link in the notes. I just add the list and I’m done. Amazon stuff just goes into a Amazon List. An Applescript pulls my Amazon receipts for books and puts them in a to read list.
Web sites I need to read later or do something with go into EagleFiler as clippings (and bookmarked to Pinboard) or Instapaper.
A lot depends on priority. Does it really need to get done, or is it just “like to” time killers? Low priority or like to stuff goes in a bookmark pile in Pinboard. I tend to try to keep things that are passive out of Omnifocus when it doesn’t need time/attention.
I have separate notes in my Someday/Maybe folder in DEVONThink. They are lists of S/M projects, things to buy, books to read (split into several notes, I like them to be no more than a page long before I split the category) and much more. I currently have 63 of these sorts of S/M lists. I save video links and web pages the same way. It’s not as convenient to use as other systems but more portable and easier to manage in a variety of machines and places.
Here are a few screen captures of just a few of them for ideas.
I decided that a single place for all my someday/maybe stuff was better so none of it is in Omnifocus. I regularly move things in and out as the season to work on them apasses so these are working lists not static.
Letterboxd here as well for movies. I’m wiredfractal on LB if you want to add me.
I used Delicious Library back then to track my books (read/unread) and then switched to Goodreads. But I find that the best solution for me is to have a piled books on a small coffee table that I go back to from time to time. If I finish one, I place a new book on the pile of my unread ones. This one works for me since I read multiple books at the same time. I equate it to watching multiple tv series in a week.
Since there are too many streaming services, I just gave up on tracking and just go which one I want to see on a day-to-day basis as I don’t binge watch series.
I used Instapaper for articles but they just became a bookmark service since I don’t go back to real all the stuff on my list.
For shopping, I have Todoist for that as I can add software, apps, clothes, etc. on the pile.
For news/articles, I used Feedbin and I learn to choose my battle. Skim the articles that I really find interesting. If I don’t read it now, I won’t read it later and so on.
For research purposes, I stuff everything in Evernote as I find that things can disappear if you just bookmark links.
I guess I should simplify this…
