I recently decided to move data out of Devonthink, Dropbox, and Google Drive into Finder and iCloud. Previously, I was using a combination of these apps for managing all my files, but for me, the $100 a year subscription for DT was just too much - I really don’t need another AI interface, so it wasn’t worth the cost for me. I also cancelled Dropbox which saves me an additional $200 a year.
To my surprise, I’ve been delighted with my new system. It’s taken away a lot of the steps and friction I used to have when saving and searching files. Instead of everything going into Dropbox or the DevonThink Inbox and then being filed, I have all my important folders on the Finder sidebar, and this makes everything a one-click save.
I am also really surprised how good Spotlight search has become. I used DevonThink mainly due to bad experiences in the past with Spotlight (mainly bugs that stopped it from indexing files well, and when I search for terms within files, it often didn’t work). I’ve been testing it again since the launch of the new DT and it hasn’t let me down yet. It is working great for text in PDFs and text documents alike and is much faster than before.
More than anything, I am super happy to wave goodbye to DT to Go - as I hated this app. Searching with Spotlight on iOS is just of a magnitude more efficient, and with the option to download whole directories, it has no downside. I enjoy working on my iPad much more now that I don’t have to open that dreaded app and wait for several mins for it to update every time I need to search for something! Now, I feel confident when I search with Spotlight on iOS, it will give me the latest files. I can finally search Notes and my files at the same time without worrying about whether the database is up to date.
So, this has proven to be an eye-opening endeavor. I didn’t realize that my workflow was both inefficient and was creating a lot of unnecessary work for me. I am also surprised how good Spotlight has gotten. I get a little delight now when working as I can see how much more efficient this workflow is.
Einstein is reported to have said: “It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”
An often-quoted version of this constraint (which cannot be verified as posited by Einstein himself) reduces this to “Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Did you not have Spotlight enabled for your databases? You should’ve been able to pull up content from both DT/DTTG and Notes in the same Spotlight search. Wishing you well on the rest of it. It would be great if Finder let you pin any item link to the sidebar.
I did, but on iOS it was always out of date and I had to open the app and wait for it to sync and index to be able to search recent files. I create a lot of files so this was almost every time I needed to search. Now, I have my work folders set to download always and it’s always up to date when I search.
I’ve been trying for simplicity and lack of subscriptions for a couple of years. I can see the need as I watch my older clients struggle with technology. On the one hand, I’ve been bouncing all over the place with notes apps and email clients. On the other hand as I get older, I have been switching from “I don’t know what continuity is” (most of my 36 years with computers) to “wow! I have a system and I can’t really change from it now”:
MailMate and finally, smart folders for everything.
UpNote
Spotlight
Pages and Numbers
MarkDownload and UpNote Web Clipper for read-it-later Markdown
Typora and pandoc for converting read-it-later Markdown to permanent documents
JumpDesktop for connecting with remote (people) clients.
@Rob_Polding I am happy that your simplification led to good results for you.
Stories like this and personal experiences make me occasionally sceptical about the value of very sophisticated workflows. Productivity procrastination is a thing I have suffered from. I am now on a similar „diet“.
What helped me was getting more into sharing digital information (notes, files, calendar, reminders) with my non-techie spouse. She keeps me grounded on the stock apps by annoyingly pointing out that the issue in our digitalisation workflows is not a lack of shiny new apps but us not being disciplined about using the perfectly fine solutions we have with files.
Devonthink is a brilliant app that never worked for me. I imagined all the opportunities for using it but in the end, I never had the muse to implement a perfect setup for my use cases.
@Bmosbacker Einstein quotes make me happy as a physicist. Although I might even prefer tongue in cheek Feynman.
I’m a believer that the fewer apps you use the better off your life will be! Sorry if that seems to break the definition of “Mac Power User”. Spotlight, especially when run from within Finder, is an excellent search tool, although DevonThink does have a few extra tricks up its sleeves. 15 or so years ago I snuck a Mac mini into work for ease of documentation management over Windows. I didn’t get DevonThink until recently but I do see how it would have helped me wade through the muck back then like it can do for my aging mind now.
He’s referring to Richard Feynman who was — if not is — the best physics explainer of all time. He had this 1000 megawatt smile every time he got to talking about a problem that interested him.
He was the man who discovered and insisted on reporting the true cause of the Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Feynman is also the namesake of the Feynman Method of Study
I have simplified greatly over the years and have found that I accomplish more of the things I want, I have fewer frustrations with tech (or my frustrations are concentrated over a few tools rather than distributed among many), and I experience less friction all around. I don’t feel less power usery, though. I think having learned from the experience of application proliferation and disarmament is what makes me a power user.
I guess rather than being less of a power user, I’m less of a power user discusser. I have less to talk about because I’m using basic work flows tuned to my needs and desired outcomes. And I’m less caught up in trying to make a group of apps work together a certain way.
I don’t suggest my way is any better than anybody else’s. It’s just I’ve found this straightforward approach to work really well. It’s saved me a few bucks, too.
So, @Rob_Polding, from one fellow traveler to another, welcome!
I find it hard to see how 100 bucks a year for DEVONthink 3 is a lot. I had a ‘professional’ level book recently I need at nearly 200$ I have one journal that charges 280$ per annum that I also really need. Some quite ‘low cost’ subs mount up quickly too.
I will admit that I now use DEVONthink 3 and Keyboard Maestro more or less exclusively for everything and they are, actually the reason I stay on Mac, though inertia and familiarity would keep me there probs.
In fact I just dropped Ulysses and moved most of my note taking into DEVONthink 3, it seems more seamless than it used to feel. I do use Tot and have BBEdit and a couple of word processors including Mellel. I use BBEdit from ‘within’ DEVONthink 3 though and the other ones too really.
I keep audio files seperate from DEVONthink 3 but that is all now. I find it cheap at the price frankly. I will say, that after a really quite short learning curve, which you get with anything, DEVONthink 3 is not as hard to learn as some make out: in fact it is quite easy and a lot of it is intuitive and you can feel your way into it.
I use DEVONthink to Go purely for clipping things if I am on my iphone and find it works well for that. I like to see what I have and use the ‘thumbnails’ feature in DEVONthink 3 which now works very well, even for weblocs. I do have a few things in Bookends but I link them all to DEVONthink 3 to make them ‘searchable’ from there. So really everything can be searched from DEVONthink 3 and it searches and connects things well: I don’t know how under the hood and don’t care: I really like this app.
That’s a great summary. His lecture series on physics is outstanding. He also coined the term cargo cult science which means to imitate scientific methods but fooling yourself.
No, I understand what you mean of course! I don’t compose or edit heavily in DEVONthink 3. However once finished or at ‘that stage’ as it were, it goes into DEVONthink 3. I have found Typora’s Markdown easier to use than Ulysses.
I use BBEdit a bit now too, just to be ‘techy’, also Typora and even Tot a bit. I haven’t quite settled yet, and since it is twenty years at least since I started with computer Word processors I guess I never will? Do you think? Did you ever really? I hardly ever use a Word processor actually.
I work a lot ‘in my mind’ and mostly I need citations which I don’t remember verbatim usually so I need notes and references for that.
I do always have DEVONthink 3 open when I write though, this might be of interest to DEVONthink 3 people.
I use thumbnails a lot and view them “as icons” at large resolution, and I work my thoughts round those quite often, sometimes I can read the notes that way and screenshots and so on help me pull my thoughts around. I don’t edit heavily any more or cut and paste and so on.
It is mainly why I like DEVONthink 3 and nobody else seems to use it that way. It isn’t a very ‘productivity centric’ way of using it in the usual sense. I don’t consciously know how I use the ‘find and sort’ features any more either. So though I am not writing, as such, in DEVONthink 3 it is open and being looked at all the time. I need a bigger screen really, next time I will go for the 16" macbook air. I do cmmnd tab a lot though really and that seems to work.
I often have DEVONthink open while writing, especially when I need to reference research articles. I tend to use many—but by no means all—of DEVONthink’s features. It serves as an excellent research database and is also a useful tool for tasks like file conversion, OCR, and the like.
I have spent so much time trying to figure out the perfect system for me that if I were to rely on tools that I’ve always had on my Mac, I’m not sure what I’d do with all the time I’d get back. Seriously, a simplified workflow makes sense to me and it’s something I’ve been working toward. I am pretty sure Devonthink will fit into my eventual strategy, but as it’s such a powerful tool, I haven’t completely worked out how yet.
One set of tools that I’ve known about forever, but only recently have been looking at include launchers like LaunchBar, Alfred, RayCast, etc. What I’m finding is that these tools can help me perform tasks and find what I need in an efficient, non-complicated way, while letting me continue to do the majority of my work in whatever tool makes the most sense. For example, I can use LaunchBar to quickly find a contact and connect via FaceTime from wherever I am, or regardless of whatever I happen to be doing on my Mac.
I’m glad you posted this, your move to a simpler workflow makes a lot of sense to me and I’m glad I’m not the only one out there who is thinking about going down this path.
Would highly suggest using Alfred and Hazel. Alfred for searching files quickly and hazel for organizing files automatically in the background. Some people also use Keyboard Maestro for managing files, but Hazel seems to work for me.
