Tag: 生产力

今日打工顿悟：工作总量不会减少，只会转移。一件事情，总得有人做，你不做就得我做，我不做就得他做。组织内部，可以做到分工明确各司其职。但是组织和组织间的协调合作，总得有人多做一点，事情才能推进下去。就看是谁求谁了。

总结一下这大半年学编程的感受和心得：东西很多，很不学不完，但一个需求我只需要一种方法满足，余下的我也不需要学。

打工人为什么永远难受？

因为老板看问题的角度和打工人不一样，老板拥有的信息也比打工人多，老板最清楚自己需要什么，但是老板很难把自己的需求全面完整得交代出来。在绝大多数情况下，老板脑子里想的，和他嘴里说的，以及你听到脑子里去的，是三种信息。

所以常常造成你必须三番五次修正才能达成工作目标，同时三番五次沟通过程中的误解与辩解又会让人心累不已。

很多老板会想当然的觉得自己说清楚了，很多打工人也会想当然觉得自己听懂了。这不是哪一方的问题，这是人类的惰性，只不过科层制度和基于雇佣关系的劳动报酬制度放大了这种矛盾。

大公司的低效源于沟通成本过高，所以中层干部每天最主要的工作就是拉群、开会、对齐、沟通，这不是大公司低效的原因，是低效的结果。

优秀的产品来源于优质的灵感，优质的灵感来源于充分的积累，充分的积累来源于将海量信息系统整合。所谓天赋、创意，背后拼的都是底层系统构建的能力

来源：优秀的产品来源于优质的灵感，优质的灵感来源于充分的积累，充分 - 即刻 App

yes indeed

对于环境对人的塑造有了新体会：不管是在北京的房间里还是在武汉的房间里，都没有办法做正经事。一旦进入这个空间我就会情不自禁的打开视频网站，然后开始无休无止的浪费时间。这周末把客厅/厨房收拾一下吧，搭建一个新空间出来。

I do all my writing in a text file. Not any text file or “text files.” I mean one single .txt file.

All my notes, blog posts, ideas, essays - anything not written in pen or pencil - live in or begin life in this document and its copies. Everything I post online is just a copy-paste.

Sounds chaotic, right? Maybe it is, a little. But not as much as you might think. Personally, I think it’s removed the distractions and fuss of previous workflows I’ve tried.

But to be clear, what I’m about to share is not some productivity hack. It won’t automate your workflow, “link your thinking,” or make writing easy. You could think of it as a lazy man’s PKM. Though it’s more for knowledge dumping than “knowledge management.”

For the record, I think the most “powerful” note-taking and writing system is the one that you find enjoyable to use, allows you to retrieve old ideas, and inspires you to write and think every day. Anything more is superfluous and might actually get in the way.

To this end, a notebook with an index (which I also use) is perfectly viable. As is a folder on your desktop or the note software on your phone.

And so is One Big Text File (OBTF).

What is OBTF?

Using OBTF is not a new idea. It was relatively popular among niche blogosphere circles in the mid-2000s. As far as I can tell from the surviving posts, the concept can be traced back to some observations by tech journalist Danny O’Brien regarding how technologists work.

In any case, the premise behind OBTF is simple. It is the idea of keeping everything - or nearly everything - in one .txt (or .md) file. You might use it to store to-do lists, URLs, meeting notes, a reading log, a calendar, blog entries, essays, or pretty much anything else. However, I wouldn’t suggest using it to store sensitive information like passwords, your darkest secrets or bank details.

Now, you might ask why anyone would remove all the categorization benefits of having separate files and folders. And wouldn’t the result be an unwieldy mess? Well, in my experience, finding things in OBTF is blazingly fast.

To be clear, I don’t scroll through my OBTF looking for things. That really would be hell. I don’t even touch a keypad or a mouse. Instead, I use tags and search. The latter of which can be done using hotkeys found on pretty much any modern text editor.

The base of my daily workflow is reading, thinking, and dumping thoughts that I think are worth remembering or writing (because a note is not always something you need to remember, but often something you need to write to think about) into my file. When there’s something I want to talk about more extensively, I look over my previous notes on the subject and start writing right there in said file.

Once I’ve written and am relatively happy with a long-form piece of writing, I’ll copy it over into a new .md file, run a few grammar-checking scripts (largely pinched from here), convert the .md file into an HTML file using a program called pandoc and upload it to my site (or copy-paste it to wherever I need).

The above may sound like a lot of work, but it mostly happens from my OS’s terminal with a handful of commands. I’m sure a similar workflow could be achieved just as easily using GUI tools.

Again, if the system sounds imperfect, that’s because it is. The appeal is not perfect “knowledge management.” It’s about removing any friction from my workflow.

OBTF lets me throw in knowledge, forget about it, and maybe retrieve it later. It’s kind of like a notebook in that sense. And as far as I’m aware, no one has yet proven there to be a better system than a notebook. So, why not replicate that?

Why would I do this?

What are the benefits of working like this? For me, a few points come to mind:

• Zero distractions (no fiddling with formatting, fonts, plug-ins, or shiny new productivity tools - markdown formatting handles everything)
• Miniscule storage and processing. Even a massive .txt file will run nicely on relatively ancient hardware and lightweight operating systems
• Easy to sync data between computers
• Can “dump” notes without worrying about where they “fit” in a system
• Works with any text editor with search functionality (so, all of them), meaning there’s no fear of client lock-in, software enshittification, or losing access to your data. .txt will always be platform, system, and application-independent
• Everything can be found in one place with relative ease. That means no logging into the cloud or switching between software to find stuff
• Basically, zero task-switching
• It works well with a mouse/keypad-free workflow
• As the text file grows, you can look back at your progress (all those ticked to-do lists) and the progression of your thinking.

Of course, there are potential drawbacks to OBTF as well. If you don’t use tags, things will get lost (I’d argue some things are meant to be lost, but I digress). Also, if you’re not used to working with .txt files or text editors, the lack of inline formatting could be a little disorientating at first.

Nonetheless, I feel like OBTF manages to achieve a lot of the things PKM software promises with none of the fuss, set-up, or anxiety about using the “right” methodology (I probably couldn’t sell you a course on the “right way” to use a One Big Text File. Don’t worry, I don’t want to either). In any case, it works for me.

Final thoughts

I have an inkling that very few people who read this will attempt to implement their own OBTF. This is okay. Despite my personal love for the idea, I don’t want your big takeaway to be that using a big text file is the future. It isn’t.

What I will say is that whatever works, works. And it doesn’t need to be fancy.

Of course, you can keep your notes, ideas, and writing in a cutting-edge PKM program if that works for you. You can also use a notebook, index cards, a big f’n text file, a blog, or just keep a bunch of files in a folder. The truth is that the medium and the tools don’t matter. What matters is that you get that stuff in your head down. Tomorrow’s revelation might just be the fleeting thought you had today.

Further reading

• A Plain Text Personal Organizer by Daniel Lucraft
• Living in a Single Text File by William Hern
• My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file by Jeff Huang
• 赛博苦行僧

问：为什么不用 rss 阅读器，而把邮箱当作信息更新的 inbox？ 答：因为不想在电脑上多装一个软件。macOS 和 iOS 自带的邮箱 app 删不掉不是？

用了一上午 web 端的 Microsoft TODO，除了没有快捷键不大习惯以外，感觉也没有那么难用。多谢 web app 拯救了我的乞丐版 MacBook。

一时兴起折腾起了 thunderbird，搞了一些插件，算是把 mail、todo、和 GPT 整合到了一个 app 里了。可惜没有账号体系，日后换电脑了还得再整一遍。最后，开源万岁！

长时间集中注意力学习，很难，非常难。