My Fight Against "Overdoing Productivity"

I had a similar conundrum when I purchased Eagle (note, not EagleFiler!) for asset management. I had stuff in KeepIt and while it was obvious that typed notes belonged in KeepIt and logo graphics belonged in Eagle… where would I put, say, a scan of my “baby book” that Mum kept? What about a scan of a photo intended for my memoir? And a scan of my current passport?

I was confused at first. Those three things are all scanned images but quite different. In the end the penny dropped when I realised the differentiator was “how will I use it?” and also somewhat “where will I be when I use it?” The how is whether it contains information I will reference or whether it is an “object” that I will place somewhere.

Anything for my memoirs, or that I may just be keeping as a keepsake, is an “object” and that belongs in Eagle from where it can be placed in a document of some kind. My passport, however, is something I need to refer to. It is information that may be referenced. Not so different from the typed notes.

One difference between Eagle and KeepIt is the former is restricted to my Mac, which is where I am likely to be constructing stuff needing the objects. KeepIt syncs to iCloud so I have its entire contents everywhere with me. A receipt, the passport, or measurements for something may all be needed outside of home.

So… information in KeepIt, things in Eagle. Maybe this line of thinking will help others differentiate their content.

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Your Keepit and my EagleFiler apps seem similar to me as they are both “everything bucket” apps.

But Eagle, with which I am unfamiliar, claims to be a good host and organizer for photos, graphics, and other resources used by designers. I don’t have an equivalent app, unless perhaps my use of Photo Mechanic to import, cull, and view my photos might qualify. Although my photos are stored at the operating system level and are accessible in a set of Finder folders. I don’t know how the Eagle app stores its resources.

I had been putting everything, even my typed notes, into the EagleFiler everything bucket until this MPU forum introduced me to the NotePlan app.

Immediately, my Daily Note moved to NotePlan with its beautiful navigation, editing, and display of Markdown files (sorry Byword editor app!) And other typed notes like list, how to, and project notes began migrating from EagleFiler to NotePlan where I could get at them quickly and even link them to my Daily Note using double-bracket syntax. (Linking had been one of the features I liked about Obsidian.)

Upon consideration, that last ability to link miscellaneous notes to my Daily Note makes it clear to me that notes I create in or migrate to NotePlan will stay there as I don’t want to break the links that I am building.

One other difference I see in our apps is that my EagleFiler everything bucket app is Mac-only while NotePlan is just as capable on my iPhone as on my Mac.

That’s actually just the same. Eagle is a Mac app only which stores its contents in a “library”. Meaning you can only access the contents via Eagle. That said, I put my library in iCloud. Why? Because I can. Maybe in the future that will have benefits if I end up with two Macs again or if they venture into iPadOS.

FWIW, I keep my passport image as a secure note in my password manager.

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Yeah, I don’t think I even have my current passport stored anywhere… it was just an example of different use types. My addled brain couldn’t come up with anything better at the time.

I need to try this approach again.

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A while back I realized that more than half my workday is spent problem solving via calls or emails. I have to get to information quickly so I don’t spend too much time searching. This is Evernote for me since I enter information via email and just snippets of reference information. My task list is primarily made up of follow-up items that I enter so I don’t forget to do it. The next step of 5 or 6 projects is also there along with personal recurring tasks (like replace toothbrush head). I guess I realized that agility was more important than anything to get my work and personal tasks done.

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