1. 4
    1. 2

      The only thing missing is org mode…

      1. 2

        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.

    2. 1

      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.