DevonThink alternative?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 25, 2010 at 08:57 PM

I’ve been trying to make PB my go to information manager for the past few months, so far with limited success (which is actually an endorsement). Here are my somewhat premature observations:

I agree with Gary that PersonalBrain is not a good place to write and store long texts. I have not run into the performance issue Gary describes, but I haven’t tried to load PB with lots of long text notes, because I find the note editor very weak. I would not use PB as a substitute for an outliner or writing processor.

Also, I do not think it is a great mind-mapper for brainstorming, although you could certainly use it as such.

Where PersonalBrain shines is in linking information, both internally and externally. If you want to store long notes in PersonalBrain, the best way to do this is to open a Word document as a template for a thought, write all you want, then save the document. It is now linked to that thought (a thought being any single item floating around in the “plex”). You can save the document internally or externally. If used properly, I think PersonalBrain can be very powerful, because it provides the structure for all the information in your workflow, but allows you to use other applications that handle various aspects more effectively. Keep an Excel spreadsheet for tracking an ad campaign alongside PDFs of the ads. Of course, you can do this in OneNote too—or the folders in Explorer even. The advantage of PersonalBrain is showing relationships among this information, as well as having simple, effective ways to search and find the information quickly. (What bothers me with OneNote [and I’m using 2007] is when you search for information, you often have to wade through many different pages to find what you’re looking for—and it has no “favorites” either, so you can’t have quick access to frequently needed pages.) But if you want to use OneNote and PersonalBrain together, that’s easy too, because you can copy the URL for a OneNote page as a link in a PB thought and have quick access to that page.

So, if you’re looking for one program to handle all your information management needs, you might be disappointed with PersonalBrain. But if you’re looking for an application to bring all your information together for rapid, sensible action, PB may work well for you. That’s, at least, how I’m now approaching it.

Steve Z.