Starting to transfer to a spreadsheet instead of my usual paper notebook I list all my electronics in to get a grasp on all my parts (towers, laptops, memory, motherboards, videocards, etc). Lately I’ve been on a kick of labeling all my shelves (medicine, linen, kitchenware) and trying to sort things into random plastic bins I’ve had laying around waiting for a purpose.
I realize I could dive into deep rabbit holes for every category. With electronics I’m thinking of documenting every chip, board, and component along with compatibilities. Pantries and personal goods could be inventoried and auto-reordered, better tracking of my tools and materials with service reminders for equipment, etc etc.
I’ve gone through years where I throw everything away and get rid of anything not used recently and years where I horde everything and anything. Seems moderation in both is key and why keeping it all in mind and documented seems like the right thing to do if you have the time to kill.
tldr, what tips or tricks do you use to keep up with all your shit?
Sounds easy. Well, straight-forward, at least. For such things i use “zim” (a desktop wiki). Tangibles (like a motherboard) get a page that contains “links” to all the variables and components you want to track/index (the actual target pages don’t actually have to exist). I would the drop that page in a hierarchy of containers (building, room, box, etc).
Organized this way, you can locate a tangible using any of the backlinks (like, by component), and reference the page path if you actually need to lay hands on it in the future. There is also a search feature, but i find myself using the backlinks for more frequently.
Also, by organizing the pages into a container hierarchy, it makes it easy to shift things around when physical things move (as all the sub-pages come along for the ride).