Further Adventures in DEVONthink

I posted the other day about how I’ve set up DEVONthink to manage the bookmarks I’d previously kept in Pinboard, and earlier I described how I’m using it as my personal journal. I’ve also been developing some other resources within the app, and in the process have learned more about its features.

One resource is a Reading List, which just contained archived web pages that I send to DEVONthink from Vivaldi on my Mac, and to DEVONthink To Go on the iPad from Safari. (Before you ask, yes I’m aware that Safari has its own Reading List; I don’t use it because it’s limited to Safari, and I prefer Vivaldi on the Mac.)

The advantages of this system, for me, are that:

1. DEVONthink can declutter the article text itself, no external service required.
2. The archived pages are available offline.
3. I can cut out extraneous text from the article, highlight sections and add annotations.
4. I can convert items to Markdown, RTF or even PDF if required, and file them away for reference. Handy for technical documents.

I have a separate database created in DEVONthink solely for this purpose. The app also has its own version of a Reading List, but that isn’t available in DEVONthink To Go currently.

The other resource I’m in the process of creating is my version of a ‘Knowledge Garden’. Since DEVONthink now supports the creation of WikiLinks between records, and even lets you define a template for creating new records from a WikiLink, this should be a lot easier for me to put together!

I’ve looked at other applications such as Obsidian that operate in a similar way using Markdown, but decided to focus on DEVONthink instead for the simple reasons that:

1. I already have it installed.
2. I have a fairly good grasp on using it now.
3. It has a lot of power to help me make connections and organise information.

I’m excited to see how this develops!

I want to close this post with a confession. I’ve owned the DEVONthink app for many years now, but in the past it has just been a dumping ground for documents. That was a mistake, but an understandable one since I’d done the same thing with Evernote and Pocket before that. Last year I declared digital bankruptcy on all the data that was lying around in there and started afresh, initially just for archiving emails and financial documents. Learning more about how DEVONthink works has helped me to work out how best to use it for the future, and made me more deliberate in how I expand it.

I will undoubtedly be writing more posts about DEVONthink and how I’m using it throughout this year and beyond, as well as how it dovetails into the other apps that I’m using.