I talk about the tool set for the kind of information and attention management that Attention Compass provides.
 
I get a lot of questions about: I use tool X. What about tool Y? What tools should I use? Most of this revolves around “where should I keep my stuff?”
 
And we’ll talk about that today.
 
When I say tool, I mean online service, system, database, to keep my stuff. Google Keep, Apple Notes, Clickup, etc.
 
The information storage tool is a core part of the Attention Compass system. Our information is a primary consumer of our attention in two ways: comprehending it and finding it when we need it. The storage tool is primarily about ‘finding’.
 
It is vitally important that you have a tool, a place.
 
We’ll talk about why that is.
 
And we’ll talk about the purpose and properties of a good tool.
 
So here we’ll lay out what the purpose of a tool is, some of the properties that a tool should have. It’s not exhaustive, and that way, you’ll have a better picture of what’s going on.
 
In general, the tool here is the container and storehouse for our information
  • We’re talking about a tool for personal information management – a storehouse for information. Our storehouses have “containers”.
  • A library (information storehouse) has books (information containers).
  • Is having a container the ideal? I really can’t envision another way to do it.
Container
  • The container defines what our information can do, and more importantly, defines what we can do with our information.
  • Container is not a rigorously defined term,
  • Challenge: medialessness = ‘container’ as a metaphorical term it’s all just electronic, and we can mimic containers – OneNote = electronic paper
  • (Almost) everything about OneNote to me looked like a piece of paper.
  • OneNote – an astonishing difference
  • Back to the container – metaphor from the physical
  • Now containers are really just metaphorical
  • The app developer creates the container and creates the metaphor for how you use the container
  • And that’s how information is stored in computer apps
The ‘right’container
  • The ‘right’ container is pretty murky – we don’t know what a fundamental unit of information is (it ain’t the bit)
  • So we have to create our own containerized units of information – examples: a note, a text field in an app, a snippet of audio
  • The kind of container matters in how we’re able to use the tool, and what the tool is able to do.
Another example of container: a calendar appointment
  • Certain kinds of information goes in there very well.
  • Other kinds of information doesn’t fit well
  • Can I mangle the container in such a way that it supports storing a chapter of your book?
  • a Google Calendar calendar event may have different fields than an Outlook calendar calendar event.
  • Are they both calendar events? Or is one different enough that we need to come up with a different name for it?
Container names don’t convey much information
  • Back in the day, it was easier because the medium defined the properties of the information.
  • A note in evernote and a note in onenote are different critters, because they have different ways they can interact.
What kinds of containers are best?
  • The PIM folks give a list of kinds of information that our systems should support. Does a tool have containers that support these four kinds of information well?
  • You can say, Okay, well, here’s why it would be a good Personal Information Management tool, and here’s where it would be weak.
  • People get enamored of a container type and devote themselves to that container type without much thought about Well, is it an effective container? “my tool is the best tool, and it works for me…”
  • From a pure informational standpoint, there is very little difference between the bits that are stored in a contact record versus the bits that are stored in a calendar container.
  • I counsel people to not get so married to one app, but really think about what the app does
Also, a system has properties – these are more about the library (storehouse) than the book(s) (containers)
  • Property is something that applies to all the different container categories equally
  • Properties that a personal information system needs to have
    • Security
    • Data availability
    • Information management – archiving, backups, etc.
I’ve discovered some good properties of information that are just now being embodied in tools,
  • The storage metaphor
  • The retrieval mechanism
  • It’s fine to store it, but if you can’t retrieve it, it’s useless
  • Global Search has its place, but it is not a panacea.
List of four
  • The personal information management people have four kinds of content that a system needs to handle.
  • They’re not perfect categories. Classification systems – Mendeleev’s Table of the Elements
  • Contact management is about the people in our lives
  • Calendar information is all about managing our time
  • Communication management is about interactions with people
  • Records management = historical data management. This is the blurriest of the categories.
  • In attention compass we talk about actionable information versus reference information. Maybe a fifth kind?
How to determine if a tool stacks up?
  • A framework for evaluating tools based on the 10 properties
  • Compare tools based on how well they support each property.
  • The challenges of using multiple “best-of-breed” solutions
  • Be open minded about the tools – don’t get “married” to one
Recap