Zengobi Forums

[edwardro]

Hi Everyone!!!

This is a question for George and those of you with experience using Curio for "Life Management" and A LOT OF PROJECTS

I would like to setup Curio to manage my life. Going through the videos and reading the manual, I realized I have 2 main ways of going about this.

1) I can setup different projects around each and everyone of my areas of responsibilities, say, business owner, health, author, etc. Within those areas of responsibilities "curio projects", then I would setup folders for each projects that belong to those areas of responsibilities.

I understand that there is a way to categorize projects in curio, but If I were to mark a category as an area of responsibility, then there is no way I could have a space for that area just to write about mission, vision, purpose, etc, about that area of responsibility.

2) The other one would be to setup a MASTER "my life project" with different sections in it, each one representing a different area of responsibility.

Every Section will have many folders for projects, like: Active Projects, Next Projects, Future Projects, Maybe/Later Projects.

Within those folders, I would have their corresponding "master spaces" that would represent the actual projects.

My question to you is:

Which one is more advisable? I am inclined to have ONE MASTER PROJECT that includes everyone of my areas of responsibilities on it as section, BUT I am concerned that the file will get too big (size wise) as time passes since I handle A LOT OF PROJECTS, both, current and future ones.

Given the nature of Curio, would you do all of this in a single project, or is it "technically" better to do them separately?

I love the idea of having everything accessible one one SINGLE PROJECT

By the way, because of the TOP DOWN approach that I am describing, I see myself using Curio this way for everything, in other words, since every project will belong to an area o responsibility, it looks like if I will NEVER nave to create another "Curio Project", because on the workflow I am describing above, all of my projects will be actually Idea Spaces and hierarchies coming out of them.

What's your take on this?

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

[george]

Great question.

Curio can technically handle pretty darn big projects. While all text and meta information for the entire project is loaded in memory (for search purposes) the actual scribble and asset data (for images, Quick Look previews, etc) aren't loaded until you load a specific idea space.

Personally I might lean towards separate projects. So I'd have one for each business project I'm working on (with different sections for each major version for example). Another project for heath. Another for finances. Another for vacations (with a different section for each destination).

With separate projects they would be quick to open and switch between. You could just have a "Personal" project category (via the Project Center button on the toolbar) and then you can click to switch instantly between them.

Also, if I decide to sync some of those with Calendar calendars or with my other devices via Dropbox (or a future iPad Curio!) then I can choose which projects to sync.

If you do decide to put your whole life into a single project then please make sure you have an adequate backup system in place just in case sunspots cause a odd mishap!

[edwardro]

George, Happy New Year!!!!

Thanks for your response.

1) If I follow your suggestion (which I will, with probably a couple of variants), will I be able to have all the tasks, associated with ALL of those -separate- projects be consolidated in the task shelf? in other words, even though I am looking at one project in particular, when I go to the tasks shelf, will I be able to see all tasks from all projects, regardless of the categories they are?

2) I will be running curio from home and from my office. I will be using dropbox as a mean to sync both.

I read on the manual that I can place the libraries (repositories) in dropbox also so i can share them between these 2 computers.

I was not clear in something.

Since it will only be me working in curio, I am not sure if there are some "standard" repositories I have to setup since the get go, or I have to wait until I create them.

Do you have any suggested lists of repositories that are good to setup right away when it is a single user?

Thanks George, since I am new to Curio, I just want to make sure that I set everything up right since the start, rather than setting everything up one way only to find out later that that was not the right way.

[george]

If all the projects are part of the same project category then, yes, you can choose that category in the Status shelf and see all tasks across all of those targets.

If you're using Dropbox then definitely follow the tips listed here:
http://blog.zengobi.com/2011/04/curio-and-dropbox.html

Your personal repositories contain your personal figure styles, stencils, and idea space templates. They exist within the ~/Library/Application Support/Curio folder on your hard disk.

Using the directions listed in the manual you can copy that up to a Dropbox folder if you wish to share them although that feature is really meant to share with others.

I have heard of customers using symbolic links (the ln -s command) and moving the entire personal Curio support library to their Dropbox folder. That way tags, scrapbook assets, styles, stencils, etc, are all replicated between their machines. Add a personal style on one machine and it's available on the other. Definitely pretty slick!

[george]

I have added a new sticky note which details how to set up Dropbox syncing of the Curio application support folder.
http://www.zengobi.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1647

[Raemahn]