Why you should start using databases now! [Hack Your Day]
I’ve been promoting database usage for a while now, so let me add another post on top of the pile. I believe a database or your work (or personal) life is the most productive thing you could do which also helps you organize yourself and it may even increase your immediate productivity.
I’ve been writing posts for years and I think I’m in the thousand range now, not speaking of the numerous personal blog posts and so on. Ask me if I’ve ever mentioned site “X”. I’ll probably say no, or I don’t know, and in my professional life, a definite answer to that question may be needed.
I can not stress enough how great databases are. Sure you can use Remember The Milk for tasks, or Gubb for simple lists and so on, but in Access for example you can do it all. Buy a flower each day and record the species, number of pettles, attach wikipedia entries and record dates. Learn a new guitar tab each day, record the day, the website, attach the tab, the lyrics, the grade you would give yourself on it, make notes. You can create a custom format for this to suite the theme and much more. Beginning to see where I’m going?
It just feels good to see that so far this month I’ve written 98 pieces. I can see how many published posts there are out of all that, which project I wrote them for, which client ordered them and so on. On my new site, Organization and Planning there are buy boxes on the bottom. I even keep track of these, since I will want to review products in the “similar” section later too.
Overall what I love about databases is felxibility. You can create any application for any goal, add any fields you like, theme it, and so on. Advanced filtering, search and virtually any other option that web based solutions can offer are available.
The only problem is that all this can not be put online, apart from actually uploading the file somewhere. I bet this option isn’t too far wither, but for now you will have to settle with the offline mode, for me that’s more than enough. Expect some more posts on database specifics soon!
Original post here: Daniel
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