Why might I want to use a Wiki for my PIM? Or, more precisely, what PIM functions might I like to use Wiki for?

• bushy Note Book (for which I used to use Ms Outlook notes, now use Wiki On Zaurus)

• structured info (e.g. Address Book)? I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense. Might be better to have this in a dedicated PIM app, esp if either

  • the PIM is web-based, and it's easy to put a link in a wiki page to a specific PIM record

  • the PIM accepts a different [URL] protocol, where a [URL] launches the PIM app and opens the appropriate record. Ms Outlook actually offers this, at least for Ms Exchange [Public Folder] records, but Ms Exchange administrators tend to include spaces and other nasty characters in folders/paths, and wiki's [URL]-recognition generally breaks.

  • That Address Book issue makes things really messy. Specifically, your most "active" Address Book is in your EMail client. So, really, whatever PIM you use, you'd like it integrated into that. Which is why the Ms Outlook approach makes sense.

    • hmm, but it's easy to render a mailto URI for an email address. Though you don't get type-ahead for adding multiple people to cc list, etc.

  • of course, at the moment, my 2 MozIlla Address Book-s are not synched to each other, much less to my PDA. (Data Synch)

Calen Dar: what if you just had a wiki page (text file; index card) for each person or day (or week) (not event)? Why wouldn't that be sufficient?

• because then you get no [Alarm Clock] reminders.

  • I suppose I could write some little daemon that knows which Calen Dar page is

What about tasks (To Do List)? I suppose you could have either 1 big page, or maybe break it up by area-of-life. But this would increase the need for browsing/remembering what's at the top of the list

• Jan'2008 notes

  • personal/Free Agent tasks, and top-few DayJob reminders, are in 1 single Wiki On Zaurus page

  • I'm always rearranging that list if there are multiple things I want to get done in the next few hours, which aren't already at the top of the page (because I've changed location/context).

  • I just delete most items as they are done

  • when a task is part of a longer-term personal project, I usually have a separate wiki page for that. I often put the detail progress notes in that other page.

  • I'm not very happy with this process.

• old notes

  • actually this is bothering me a lot less these days. I really pretty much focus on one category at a time.

  • but changing categories for a task is much messier under this model (which actually happens a lot when a node is a subproject or project rather than a standalone task - see Issue Tracker).

  • and if you have thinking-notes for tasks, they muddy up the browsability of the list (need Wiki And Outlining)

  • and when you Complete an item, unless you completely delete it, you have to cut/paste it somewhere, probably a completely separate page, which is rather annoying

• this doesn't work well for shared info: Group Ware.

People talking about this:

• http://www.spack.org/index.cgi/WikiAsPim

• http://www.ourpla.net/john/wikiweblogpim.html

Hmmm, issues seem similar for Happy Net Box.

Tinder Box can be used in a similar way. (like a Structured Wiki?)

If I don't want everyone seeing this stuff, then it's my Private Wiki.

User Options Recent Changes Help Page