For working on some of my personal projects that have longer timelines than “install this tool on my Mac”, I’ve been struggling with how to track and report on progress. Things, which I love, isn’t good for these. These efforts aren’t really something that can be broken down to task levels. A good example is learning about security tools. I have a task in Things to remind me to install a tool on my Air. But tracking progress, notes, and high-level tasks I need something else. The same for working on coming up with a side-hustle and secondary revenue streams.
I was thinking of how John Carmack of id software used to maintain .plan files. It used the finger protocol as a type of blogging engine, but I liked the simple, text-based structure. As I was thinking about tracking some of my personal stuff, I debated between a separate Ulysses sheet, or using Apple Notes, or just Day One Journaling. I ruled against these because I don’t want it to be in my face. I didn’t want a constant reminder that I hadn’t gotten to those projects because work, school, and life got in the way. I also want to keep it private. I did want the ability to edit the file on Mac or iOS, so that sort of limited the app I would use.
So, I decided on keeping a sort of .plan file in Byword. It’s a simple text file. It’s out of the way since it’s not an app I use a lot. It’s just one file now named “plan” and I will be keeping some notes and goals over time there. Maybe it’s close to bullet journal, but I just wanted a separate way to track a lot of this.
Mark Crump 