I used to keep all my notes in MS OneNote. Before that I used some other software. OneNote works well on windows and after I moved to a mac I started to get more and more friction. When I moved to linux I ended my use of OneNote - the product had benn getting worse not better for many years and it was also a closed garden - I found I had to go to great lengths to share or get my data out.
Another of the down sides of using OneNote is how hard it is to publish anything. This got worse when it migrated to the cloud.
Eventually I realized I need to move to a more flexible platform. However the move would only work if it would reduce the overall time and work required to do this work.
Setup your spell checker
It takes forever to fix 100 of typos once you realize you have been typing blind for weeks.
Develop and use a markdown cheat sheet
- develop or steel one
- it can save going back and forth.
- particularly for exotic things like matrix maths.
Put the preview below
- Put the preview the editor and not on the side. It a little awkward at first but provides a more realistic picture of what’s happening.
Use a local style sheet.
- I work in vs code - I use a small (4 or 5 style in the post)
- This lets me preview these in the editor and still get a decent approximation of the final output.
- This also lets you tweak layout things so you can improve your layout iteratively.
Automate the boring stuff with Python
- There is a book with this name - look it up.
- I made a set of python function for processing pdf files to extract images from papers.
- I made these for various needs but soon shifted to automating some features I missed when leaving OneNote.
- Doing OCR was a big plus with OneNote. It turned out less of a challenge than I thought it would.
- I still have not fully automated extraction of non bitmap from pdf but I’m sure this too will be an option soon.
Capture images directly to a your image folder.
- I had to run some script to change the location on te mac for screen captures.
- I set the save as destination these in the browser.
- I set it also as the target of the scripts I use.
Do image insertions wholesale prices.
- lacking a image preview + drag and drop adding lots of images is one of the biggest pains. I do it in three steps
- screen caps to the img folder - as mentioned above.
- select each and add a meaningful name.
- move to a target folder for the post.
- copy all the files relative paths
- run a regex to convert them to md format.
Drafts & a Todo List
- keep draft and a todo list around.
- it can help kep you on point and avoid missing those good moments of inspiration.
Push changes quickly and often
- that a test first idea
- basically you get more of a flow going when the work result cycles are shorter
- think ‘Pommadoro technique’.
Find ways to bring your content to MD format.
- MD ❤️ charts.
- MD ❤️ code
- MD ❤️ math
- Jupyter notebooks are easily exported.
- Embedding videos is a challenge.
Citation
@online{bochman2021,
author = {Bochman, Oren},
title = {10 {Tips} {To} {Improve} {Your} {Workflow}},
date = {2021-04-07},
url = {https://orenbochman.github.io/posts/2021/2021-04-07-ten-tips-to-improve-your-workflow/2021-04-07-ten-tips-to-improve-your-workflow.html},
langid = {en}
}