I need an idea bin to keep track of my ideas. My willy nilly thoughts are too scattered otherwise. But I also need a paper bin to keep track of what papers I have read. It should store 3 things – a .pdf or .ps of the file, a .bib with the same name as the .ps/.pdf, and a file with the same basename as both. Then I can keep a precis of the paper and my thoughts about it in the file, keywords in the .bib, and the file itself for when I need to print it out.
Then my area exam would simply be taking these files, converting them to TeX, prettifying them, and unifying the whole thing under a theme besides “What peter likes”. This could then serve as a repository for all the files I have read. God bless digital copies! What would I have done back in analog days?
Probably, I would not have made it this far. I would be some sort of absent-minded high school teacher, always losing students’ assignments and having grandiose dreams that I forget to write down and never make real. The past sucks.
To expand upon this theme, perhaps I should merge my paper bin and this idea bin. After all, papers are just well-written ideas by other people, and the precis I write are my interpretations thereof. That would mean adding tagging to my idea bin, but that’s not impossible. Also, I should add the capability to properly handle associated files – like I do in the paper bin with the .pdf and .bib files.
Along the same lines, perhaps it is time to try Getting Things Done to see what all the crazy kids are crowing about.
