Saving Ideas In My Grimoire

Transcript

Hey folks! I'm Alan, and this is how I save ideas to my Grimoire. Which you could also call my second brain, outboard brain, or, simply, my notes app.

The app is a Neovim plugin. It's based off of an old Mac app called N-V-alt. But, you can use the same approach with any app that lets you search for files.

Opening my Grimoire presents me with a file preview, a search bar, and a list of results that starts with recently opened files.

The results update with search matches as soon as I start typing.

I've got several files I use to collect ideas, songs, band names, and the like.

Adding a new entry is done by searching for the file, opening it, and adding the item.

It doesn't take long to remember search strings to get to specific files. For example, "songs with" brings up my list of songs with great intros.

Exact matches aren't required. The same "songs with" shows my sax solos file as the second result. I hit the down arrow once and I'm there.

The naming convention I use starts filenames with a tag followed by a dash. They act as an optional way to filter searches. For example, doing

site DASH I.D.

brings me to the list for my random ideas site.

Using the search scales pretty well. Even with eleven thousand files in my grimoire, I can get to any of my lists with no trouble at all.