Before I go into the actual tool itself (which is the easiest part), I’d like to dwell on how you can successfully and effectively use such information management tool, be it the one I’m using (recommending) or any other. In the old days, people use a filing system with files and cabinets and some with additional help of a good efficient secretary with a great memory. Well, to make it work, you’d use one filing system and put all files in the same physical place (or if in different places, you’d have at least a consistent single system – whatever it is, to enable efficient search and location of the item(s) you want, say years later. I guess if your secretary is good, you’d hope to keep her so that she always know where things are and get you the right items promptly each time. In the digital world, …it’s just the same. To make it work, you’d stick to the one single system and depository where your files are stored, and you always put things in there and find things from there. It’s probably pointless if you have to look into several system/tools and depositories to find your stuff, and worse, you’ve to remember which of your stuff you’ve stored in which system! It may be simple and common sense, but with the ready available of free tools around, one may be tempted or coerce to use/try different systems (e.g. the various free and automatic cloud storages) and have their information scattered around making the whole idea much less effective. So, my recommendation is simple (but you have to act upon it)…
Put all your useful information in one system, and you always look there to find anything and everything you put there. I’m not joking, at some stage, one may forget whether you have stored any information on a certain topic and with the single system, you’d just go there and search to find out – no more guessing. Similarly, I also put all my diary entries into one single calendar system.
I attended info management courses and tried quite a few filing system- paper based and digital, and have settled with below which I recommend and will blog on their uses and my experience:-
Notes of anything/everything – Evernote
Diary – Google calendar, Sunrise calendar