đź“… 19 Dec 2021
With a new phone comes a whole host of “problems” to resolve.
One of the main things I need to address is syncing. Right up front, I will admit I’ve never synced much of anything. I used iCloud back in the day to manage some things between my iPhone and mac, but haven’t used it now for months. I’ve also used sync on Evernote back in the day for the same reason - I found it much easier to manage notes on my laptop but also needed the ability to take notes on-the-go.
Now that I have a de-googled smartphone, how do I want to manage sync? I think for me the answer is, I don’t.
Syncing is another one of those convenience things that I have discussed before. And I’m rethinking it entirely.
Back in recent history, things like contacts, addresses, and notes were only kept in paper form. I remember doing that and I still do that with a few things. Within the past few years, I have stopped writing on physical paper for anything other than my daily short-form journaling. Everything else I store in my phone, laptop, or a notebook that uses erasable ink.
So, wouldn’t it make sense to use sync then? Probably not.
First off, I’m trying to simplify. I don’t need to take different notes or work on different files in three different places. Ideally, a certain type of note/file would live in my phone and only my phone. My phone would then periodically be backed up to my laptop which itself is backed up to a hard-drive. Yes, I could use cloud storage and I’m sure I may one day, but this solution works for now. Cloud storage in and of itself also doesn’t dictate that you sync across devices. I don’t need to change these files on my laptop and then later access them on my phone - this is a one way street. Likewise, things that I write on my laptop will stay there and then be backed up periodically.
Syncthing (doesn’t the name alone blow my solution out of the water?!) can be used, and I’ve already used it some, but not on any large-scale. I’m also not sure I’ll ever put it on my phone. It’s just one more app to manage. Instead, I’ve only used syncthing to share one file at a time between laptops.
Second, syncing seems to involve elaborate set-ups. This goes hand-in-hand with my first argument. Lately I witnessed a conversation on Fosstodon that talked about trying to sync contacts on a phone outside of the google or apple walls. My solution to this is simply to not worry about it. As I move to my Pixel 3 running LineageOS, I have now copied nearly all of my contacts by hand. These will then be backed up to my laptop and boom, I have them forever. I also should really write down the most important numbers in a notebook and memorize them. I have the critical ones currently memorized, i.e. mom and dad, but I really should know my siblings, grandparents, and a few close friends. Writing them down will help.
Those are my current thoughts on syncing. Bottom line: I don’t plan on syncing across multiple devices, at least not to any measurable degree or in the normal sense of the word. I don’t need to and in some cases it can introduce a certain level of complexity that I just don’t have time for.
Day 83: #100DaysToOffload
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