[Vimoutliner] success story: vo on the move...

[Noel Henson]

Peter,

That's a great story. How about reposting it as an article on the VO site.  
I'm sure others not using VO would like to read it.

On behalf of all that contribute to VO, thanks!

Noel

On Friday 22 September 2006 03:01, Peter Princz wrote:
> Hello world,
>
> just wanted to share some very positive experiences with you.
> Now that I've changed employer last/this week, I had to return my
> corporate laptop, cellular phone, etc. to the old employer and got new
> equipment from the new employer.
>
> However, despite there was no gap in employment (Friday the last day
> on the old place, next Monday at the new job), one has to return the
> equipment a few days before as part of the exit process (Wednesday is
> my case), and will get a new one a few days later (next  Tuesday in my
> case).
>
> So there was an approx. one week long black tunnel where I didn't have
> any access to any computer, but had lot-lot-lot to do, and -of course,
> as always- everything was in a vimoutliner file!
>
> I had to return my cellular phone, buy a new subscription with a new
> phone number after 5+ years that no one knows now, and finally, the
> new workplace is in another town, so there were tasks I simply _had_
> to complete until my very last day with that company.
>
> What could I do?
>
> 1. Burn a cd with my outline file and all of the installed plugins,
> mappings, vim and vimoutliner resource files, to be able to reproduce
> the environment as fast as possible on the new place.
>
> 2. Print out the outline file and staple it as a book. (300 pages
> long!) Do a :marks and jot down the line numbers of the most important
> bookmarks to the cover page. For me, :hardcopy prints out the line
> numbers too, so finding the most important chapters in the book was
> not difficult at all. Only I had to use line numbers instead of page
> numbers, otherwise it was just a 300 pages long book with TOC, really.
> For the fastest access, I attached real bookmarks to the book: little
> post-it stickers with bookmark names written on them. Access was
> almost an instant as using a computer, amazing!
>
> 3. Get a _red_ pen to be able to spot my notes later on the pages
> easily.
>
> 4. Use my outline file ("The BrainBook" :) offline for approx. a week,
> ",,cx"-ing manually the tasks. Some tasks were added, the tree
> deepened, as I'd do with vimoutliner. I even reserved an evening just
> reading my BrainDump as a book, looking it from another perspective,
> tidying out parts, realised similar islands in the file that could be
> joined into one branch, etc. These were jotted down with arrows,
> remarks, and pointers to line numbers or chapter texts...
>
> 5. Once on the new place, I recreated my vim&vimoutliner environment
> in an hour, and copied back the outline file from cd, thus arriving
> into the state where I was at my old place.
>
> 6. Finally I did a "roll forward" from the paper-based outline file
> into vimoutliner by turning the book page-by-page and crossing the
> completed items in the file. I could use the line numbers again to
> jump quickly to the places I modified on paper. But only in the
> beginning, since line numbers got outdated once I started to
> reorganise the file a bit, based on my notes. Still, it took no more
> than 30 minutes and I'm up-to-date, and everything was completed that
> needed to be done in maybe the most critical week of my life recently.
>
> Looking back, this year I've changed the place of living and place of
> work, two very serious physical moves that happens rarely in people's
> lives (at least here), and vimoutliner proved to be a survival kit in
> both instances.
>
> The new point is that vimoutliner is very close to what I would do
> without a computer, so it can help you out when you don't have access
> to any computer for a period of time, but you have planned your tasks
> in advance.
>
> Thanks for everyone contributed to this great tool, once again.
>
> Have a nice day,
>   Peter

-- 

------------------------------------------------------------------
  Noel Henson
  www.noels-lab.com	Chips, firmware and embedded systems
  www.vimoutliner.org	Work fast. Think well.