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    The only thing missing is org mode…

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      I recently started using org-roam and org-ref to build up a personal knowledge database with an eye to writing papers on Scottish music history, and it’s been great so far. Highlights include:

      • The full markup power of org-mode (similar to Markdown, but IMHO more expressive)
      • The benefits you mentioned of everything being plain text, working with git, etc.
      • Interactive visualizations with org-roam-server
      • Really effortlessly looking up backlinks (the entire point of org-roam)
      • Integrating with org-mode’s todo/agenda system to spin off things to do and keep track of them (frequently I’ll be reading a paper and add a todo to look up some obscure source that only exists in a specific research library, for example).
      • Relatedly, turning my todo items into a kanban board
      • Pulling together all my notes so I can write something formal, and having the org file get turned into a beautiful PDF (via LaTeX) all from within Emacs
      • Painlessly inserting citations from a dedicated bibliography file I maintain, with whatever format is needed.
      • Using org links / org-roam to keep track of annotations on the sources themselves.

      And what’s wild is I still feel like I’m scratching the surface.

      After a few weeks I have 219 notes containing 10,000 words and ~350 links. It’s really wonderful how effortless it is to spin up a new note.

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      Puh, I try to keep it simple. Just Excel for my tasks and things I want to adress to other during regular meetings. A calendar named Reminder for time critical things. Flat text files in <10 folders with simple markdown as my note storage. Ah, and a regular notebook for in person meeting with others.