Time has come to release a new version of Brainiac. The whole configuration file has been almost completly restructured, cleaned up and properly commented. So I will declare this to be version 2.0.

Following changes have been made:

• READ.md has been extended to explain the installation and usage.
• Readability improvements:
  • All colors decisions are now left to Modus themes, we only change typografy, e.g. underline the PROG tasks to encode work in progress.
  • Multiple Org elements were restyled, e.g. ellipsis, tags etc., to improve scanability in large documents.
  • Added the configuration for fixed and variable pitch fonts. You may set the font family to your liking.
  • Packages org-bullets, org-appear and diminish introduced.
  • Priority cookies are removed after the task is closed, to remove visual clutter.
  • When saving, the tags will be aligned automatically.
• Added number of matches to isearch.
• Repeaters are now visible in the agenda.
• When jumping to items from the agenda, automatic narrow is done to improve focus.
• Capture from anywhere is now implemented by a custom script based on org-protocol.
• Many, many small tweaks, fixes and changes.

Get the new release from here.

Enjoy and keep hacking!

Brainiac started as a way for me to organize my own work: meeting notes with my team, technical reflections, TODOs, and the many small but important thoughts that accumulate over the course of real engineering work. Over time, it became a stable personal system that supports both focused technical work and leadership responsibilities, without getting in the way.

I host stable versions of Brainiac on Codeberg.

In it's core this is a minimal Emacs configuration, built around the great Org-mode, with additional external tools mixed in to build a complete, sustainable, flexible productivity system. As it's built around text files, it can be synced across multiple devices with ease using e.g. Syncthing, Nextcloud, git, etc. It is complimented nicely with mobile apps like Beorg, Orgzly, etc.

Brainiac is not meant to be a polished product. It’s a living system, shaped by everyday use — the kind of system you build when you care about clarity, continuity, and reducing friction in knowledge work. If you use it, feel free to reach out with feedback, ideas, or improvements. Shared practice tends to evolve better than isolated solutions.

Hello everyone!

I have been using the Brainiac intensively over the last months and made some changes to the configuration along the way. Get your update here or from Codeberg.

Improvements:

• Added journal.org to the list of refile targets.
• Reduced the width of comment, source, etc. boxes in brainiac.css.
• The attached items are now visibly listed in the drawer of the headline.
• Minor changes in the configuration, e.g. increase of idle time etc.

New things:

• Added org-crypt to the config, so that sensitive information can be encrypted if storing files on public servers.
• To integrate Brainiac into your system menu, I propose the following: copy brainiac.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications and brainiac.svg to ~/.local/share/icons.
• I added basic AI support by using a customized ollama-buddy-mini and running models locally with ollama. Although I previously stated that Brainiac would not have AI, the chosen combination presents a nice compromise between functionality and privacy.
• I also introduced the abbrev-mode as a template storage for some useful org templates and as a mechanism for storing AI prompts for future usage.
• In order to consolidate important functions and keystrokes, I configured a menu which can be reached by pressing C-c b using transient.

#emacs #orgmode #brainiac #gtd #productivity

Brainiac is a minimal, distraction-free Emacs configuration designed for GTD workflows, notes, and task management using Org-mode. This v1.1 update focuses on stability and workflow refinements — keeping the setup lightweight while improving daily use.

If you're new to Brainiac, check out the original introduction to learn about the philosophy behind this configuration.

For the past four months, Brainiac has been my daily Emacs setup for managing work projects, personal tasks, notes, and planning. I’m genuinely impressed by how little needed to change — proof that a simple Emacs workflow can stay effective without constant tweaking.

✅ What’s New in v1.1

• Default search now uses rgrep instead of find-grep-dired
• Added ultra-scroll for smoother scrolling over large images
• Removed DONE tasks from agenda to reduce clutter

• New focused Day Agenda:

  • Scheduled tasks, deadlines, and priority backlog ([#A])

• New Week Agenda:

  • Full week view + entire backlog to support weekly review flow

• Statistic cookies auto-update on save (accurate project status always)

• Improved print CSS to prevent long lines from overflowing

Along with the update, you’ll now find a picture of Brainiac — a friendly organization-loving robot — in the config folder. Enjoy the company!

Get your update from here.

I am glad to announce that my custom Emacs configuration Brainiac has reached release status. I am now using it without major changes since a couple of weeks, so it's time to freeze this version if other people want to use it.

Introduction

Why do I aim to have a minimal configuration? I am a perfectionist and tend to get lost in details. When a configuration gets larger, I loose time by tweaking it over and over again. By keeping the configuration minimal, I reduce the danger of going down the Emacs rabbit hole and increase the probability that I will focus on more important things in life.

Brainac is aimed to be a simple and easy to understand configuration for task management and note taking. It's not aimed at programmers, but at people trying to implement a workflow like GTD or build something like a Second Brain without overcomplicating the process, e.g. connection graphs, AI support etc.

The configuration is very opinionated, as it's based on my workflow. I am not trying to make it generic, just clean and easily extendable. I stick with the built-in packages in order to reduce dependencies and complexity.

Short description

Noteworthy stuff: – I picked up some sane defaults from multiple sources, like turning on the revert mode, enabling smart parenthesis, tuning of built-in completion engine etc. – The tasks and notes should look nice and readable, because of this I use the modus-operandi theme and style some things additionally to either push them to the background or to make them stick out more visually. – You can easily capture tasks, webpage links/quotes (using org-protocol) and screenshots (using org-download, org-attach and flameshot). – A simple journal with timestamped entries is configured in the capture templates. – Notes are also captured over a template and you can assign categories to them. Format is inspired by Denote. – You can export the notes to HTML (uses custom CSS) or Markdown. From there you can print to PDF or other formats. – Additionally to normal org-clock functionality, you can define a special task and clock in it per default with C-c j w. I use this to clock my work time.

I will not go deeper into details of the configuration, go thru it and explore. Most of the stuff can be understood by reading the help on variables and functions.

Currently I am using the configuration with Ubuntu Linux LTS 24.04 KDE and Emacs 29.3. If you use something else, you will probably have to tweak it.

Structure and install

The configuration consists of two major files: – brainiac.org which contains the configurations that will be tangled to early-init.el and init.el, – brainiac.css a simple CSS for the exported notes.

Unpack the zip file from here to your HOME folder ~/brainiac. You will get the structure like this:

~/brainiac/
    -- config/ <- this is where the configuration files are
    -- notes/ <- this is where all notes go
    -- attach/ <- this is where the attachments land
    -- export/ <- this is where the exported files are
    -- main.org <- this is the main org file to use for tasks, projects etc.

After unpacking open the brainiac.org and tangle it.

External apps needed are: – Org Capture for Firefox – Flameshot

Workflow

I provide a template for main.org that is based on the workflow I use:

• Top level headings are categories in my life.
• Under top level headings I create tasks and put them thru the states TODO, PROG, WAIT, DONE or CANC to track their progress.
• I use tags to provide more context to tasks, e.g. work, names, project relation etc.
• If a task comes from an Email I deal with this by using the following form TODO @ "Subject_of_the_Email", then it's easy to find it in my Emails when I need extra information on the task.
• Your daily agenda is at C-c a n. That will show you scheduled tasks for today and deadlines coming up, I work on that first.
• Every task that is not scheduled or has no deadline, is shown in a backlog below the day tasks. I use priorities to sort this backlog and give me clarity on what to work next.
• Use PRJ tag to mark your projects that will be broken down to tasks. I usually use statistic cookies at the end of the name of the project to show me an overview of tasks in the project.
• You can have a look at your projects with C-c a P. I inspect the projects once a week during the review, to see if some of them need attention, e.g. they are stuck C-c a #.
• When showing notes to other people I usually do a quick C-c C-e h o which exports the note to HTML and shows it in Firefox.

Open for feedback and improvements

If you have feedback, improvement propositions etc., just reach out to me.

Somewhere during the COVID pandemic I started checking out #emacs, because of a talk I saw on #orgmode that tickled my curiosity.

In the beginning I didn't dig into the manuals, as you should do, but started using the editor directly and customized stuff by integrating code snippets from different posts and blogs I stumbled upon, while looking for solutions for problems I faced.

Over the years as my proficiency grew, so did my Emacs config. Although I regularly removed packages I didn't use, at some point in time I did task management, note taking, blogging, news reading etc. with Emacs and kept on bringing in new packages into the mix. I didn't really reach the state of bankcruptcy, but I gathered some #elisp snippets I didn't understand or simply didn't remember why I got them at all.

So in order to force myself to finally start reading the manuals and to learn some proper Elisp, I started hacking on a new configuration for #emacs ... as this is what you do as an Emacs user.

The goal of the Brainiac configuration is to minimize the configuration to the bare minimum I need (e.g. tasks and notes) and try to stick to the built-in packages as much as possible. If I need something extra, I would try to implement it myself.

You can follow how the configuration progresses here: Brainiac. It is already fully functional and I am using it daily for private and work related stuff. When it reaches v1.0, I will write about my workflow that defined the configuration.