Wiki? Wacky!
September 14, 2021•309 words
Digital clutter is in the eye of the beholder. One man's heap is another man's folder. Mo' software, mo' problems. If you need 10,000 hours to master something (spoiler: you don't), you would need a decade to master just ten programs! During that span, nine of them would have become obsolete and the other one would have become so far removed from its origins that you still wouldn't be able to use it to its full potential.
The solution, of course, is to master the art of creating a wiki. Not just any old wiki, though. It has to be something that will last at least as long as you care about organizing your data. It has to be easy, portable and powerful. For me, that means TiddlyWiki.
For starters, TiddlyWiki (like all wikis) is a hypertext document. This means I can replace my browser bookmarks with a contextual collection of hyperlinks. In addition, I can link to files--whether they reside on my hard drives or live in the cloud. Finally, I can link to other parts of the wiki.
Next, TiddlyWiki is self-contained. I don't need a server-based platform, although that's a viable option. TiddlyWiki uses JavaScript and HTML to work its magic. Nothing beats clutter like a really large container with a lid.
Finally, TiddlyWiki is powerful enough to be useful in many contexts. I have created user manuals for clients, a bug tracker for my own software and I have used it as an alternative to Scrivener for outlining complex plots.
In all honesty, TiddlyWiki is just another shovel for my pile of digital crap. It's hardly going to make me stop using Globonote, Workona, RoboForm and Standard Notes (which you're looking at right now.)