Sharing my workflow with Agenda

Talk
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My system is the PARA method for organization but using different apps. I think Agenda is perfect for project management (the P in PARA). I want to have a chronology of every aspect of that project (documents, meetings, decisions, tasks), and it’s easy to keep track of all of this with Agenda.

I’m using background colors to give a different meaning to each project note. Purple means a meeting, gray means documentation, and tasks are colorless notes (the most common). Tags may work too, but colors make it easy to see what kind of note it is without having to read anything, and they are filterable too.

Colored notes always have a date like meetings, but tasks do not until they are completed; then I assign the current date to know when they finished. Current tasks I’m working on or tasks that are coming up next are “On the Agenda.”

I try to structure projects to be big enough to fit in 10-30 notes. If a project is too big, I try to split it into several smaller projects or fit it on a single card if it’s small enough. After a project is finished, I just archive it. If a project is not ready to start, then it’s not a project; it does not go into Agenda. This applies not only to work projects but personal projects too, like a hobby project or replacing the roof of my house so I try to write things on Agenda that are ready to start or are already started.

I just have two “intelligent views” right now. One is to see all recently completed notes (useful for writing my company’s “daily” email so I can mention what I did in the last few days), and one to see all meetings (filtered by color=purple).

Just in case some people are interested: what about the rest of the data? (Areas, resources, and archives). Most data goes into Craft. Recipes, shopping lists, pets, appointments, random ideas, movies or gaming backlog, daily notes, etc., are stored there. I store confidential documents or data on Apple Notes (ID cards, contracts, invoices) because they are searchable and encrypted. Links go into start.me, and finally, I save code snippets in Snippets Lab.

I really tried several times to use the same app for everything, but it never works; you are always going to miss something.

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Thanks for sharing your setup! Very informative.

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I am happy that Agenda does not cause my data to be shared with some company that may be or become legally required to shared it with governments, intelligence agencies or whatever third parties. Please keep it that way Drew and Alexander! :heart:

Craft may be fine for those who don’t care, but I belong to those who do.

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That’s an interesting discussion. I thought Apple’s end-to-end encryption (E2E) was secure and private, but recent news has proven—sadly—that it is not.

Just in case you are not aware, Apple is removing E2E from the UK due to government regulations. In short, Apple has the private key to disable E2E encryption, so is it truly secure? I’m not sure anymore.

It is really E2E if you are not the only one who has the key?

It’s possible that your country or mine may request similar actions, which means all of our Agenda data may become as secure as Craft data.

The Agenda team cannot access the data, that woudn’t change, but Apple and / or the Government could by request.

Am I missing something regarding Craft apart from not having E2E?

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In fact I agree that it’s important to be wary of the unpleasant circumstances that you point out. The UK seems to have a long tradition of striving to undermine the privacy of its “subjects”, so its “subjects” need to keep up their resistance. Fortunately, the current US administration appears to have clear positions in favor of free speech and privacy, and also appears willing to defend them vehemently. So all doesn’t seem to be lost yet, thank goodness.

In any case, with Agenda we’d still have the option to not have our data synced via iCloud at all. This would involve inconvenience, but I am happy to have the choice.

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BTW, I thought that iCloud wouldn’t just be “E2E encrypted”, but even better so: IIRC the data is claimed to be stored in an encrypted state that even Apple cannot decipher. With some execptions I suppose, e.g. if you upload photos and want them analyzed by AI (a service I don’t use).

E2E encryption just refers to the data “in transit” and not the stored data “at rest”.

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To be clear: UK asked to not have encryption. Apple removed the possibility in the country to use the Advanced mode which encrypt more parts of iCloud.
But the base features are still encrypted (Messages, etc.). If someone in UK has already activated the Advanced mode, he keep it: Apple can’t remove the encryption and doesn’t have the key. But UK residents cannot anymore activate the Advanced mode.

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You are almost right, I thought it was apple removing E2E without user action. After searching more information it seems they are going to give a “grace period” to disable E2E, if you don’t do it before that period you will lose your iCloud account. You can’t keep it even if you already have it.

Now I feel protected again phew. I thought it was Apple removing E2E. So In the worst case we would need to disable E2E and we could delete the data or move it elsewhere.

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Damn! Thanks for the news.

I hope this decision will be removed. An audience was set yesterday, I don’t know what was decided.