site banner

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 20, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Do any of you keep diaries or journals?

If so - what do you write in there? What format do you use: notebook, digital, etc.? And how long have you kept it up?

I don't find much use in longform private emotional introspection but I do find it helpful to keep a record of any significant actions I've taken. It's useful for reference and for finding any patterns that could provide a benefit in making plans and adapting routines, whether it's charting exercise or recording work I've done around my home.

It's all kept in OneNote along with a plethora of other notes, drafts, saved documents, cuttings and the like. Before I started using OneNote I used various handwritten to-do lists for actions combined with minimally organised digital files for anything more demanding. Having everything available in a single trivially editable digital format is significantly more versatile so now I only use paper to-do lists for short term items and information.

Onenote is amazing but the absence of interoperability sucks. I have used it on and off for years, eventually exported everything and was all the happier for it. Unique features like infinite canvas are not that helpful, it turns out.

Inline calculation was neat.

Microsoft dependence is a drawback for sure but since I'm using the OS already it's a minor negative. Where it shows up the most for me is the disparity between integration with Edge and the Office suite vs Firefox.

Did you export straight into Obsidian? Or was it more involved than that? Is there anything major that you miss beyond little QoL features like calculation? I might start a new page of notes in preparation for adding it to my to-do list.

Basically straight to Obsidian, probably via this script, or some predecessor. The worst thing about it was garbled image OCR that got embedded into md files. Not pretty.

I wonder. Everything valuable about Onenote is either implemented natively, or via community plugins, or is a nothingburger. Command palette > OneNote UI. Even drawing is supported okay-ishly now with ExcaliDraw.

Obsidian tables are not as nice. There's no Excel integration (but there is some csv support). There is multi-frame and tabs, but no multi-window. No straightforward OCR. Eh, I can live with that.