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Infrastructure Week at the Monastery

Sept. 2, 2022. The quiet end of August is a good time to get organized for a busy fall ahead. Digitally organized in my case. Sometimes novelty gets me motivated.

I'm a fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) method, but decided to explore the popular Building a Second Brain (BASB) approach. Same basic idea: get all that shit out of your overloaded brain and into a universal in-box. Cluster things into actionable projects and archive the rest. Do it. BASB focuses on your digital life: smart note-making, and dumping it all into an app that suits your needs.

For years now I have used Microsoft's OneNote to organize piles of information on collectibles, tech problems, crafting, property management, family history, and writing projects. I have s-l-o-w-l-y learned how to make the most of its features to keep track of my mental/digital/earthbound life. I love it.

But the imp of the perverse has led me to try out the popular Notion, specifically to organize my writing ambitions. Spent two days watching videos, learning its features and commands. I do like being able to design a pretty dashboard. I grappled with its very powerful database features, but decided my life is just not that complicated. And I don't need everything located in one app. I just need, well, a table of contents pointing to where my files are. So, it may just wind up being a "front page" to OneNote notebooks.

My life is not that complicated, but the older I get the more complicated simple things feel. I need brain aids to maintain my independence and pursue my ambitions. The wheels on my cart may be getting wobbly, but I can have my hay bales falling out.