It’s always interesting to see the development of a person. Back in 2009 Shawn Blanc wrote a review of Yojimbo as a case for an ‘anything bucket’. Shawn’s Yojimbo review was actually my first encounter with his writing, and it was good enough I gave Yojimbo a shot. I had tried Evernote many times but never stuck with it, so I embarked on a month long test with Yojimbo to get used to its features and see if it stuck.

Unfortunately for Yojimbo, it was to succumb to the same fate as Evernote. It became a piece of software I wanted to use, but always had to force a reason to use. It never came naturally.

I was already using 1Password to store my passwords and serial numbers. 1Password was way easier to use when trying to login to sites and i didn’t see the point in moving all my serial numbers out of 1Password since I’d never found their implementation lacking.

I was also using the ill-fated Delicious as my bookmark storage repository. Even before their fall from grace I had realized that I really didn’t need to bookmark much. It was rare I went back to things that weren’t products that could be put in a wish list for some store. My Delicious bookmarks had become a storage closet of ‘wishes’, things I wished I’d get back to but never did.

That left the other features of Yojimbo, namely storing files and notes for later retrieval. The thing is, it just never stuck with me. I found that the few PDF’s I needed to store for taxes were easier to find labelled by month in a folder. I really didn’t take many notes that weren’t client specific and they were easier to find in a folder for that client.

Ultimately I wanted to use Yojimbo (I actually own a license) but just never found a good use case for an anything bucket. Then throw in the lack of an available everywhere sync like you get in Evernote, and it was doomed to failure for me.

Now in 2012, a bunch of software built for more specific purposes has taken over for Shawn as well.

I like the idea of an everything bucket, but the reality is I don’t use it and it ultimately feels cluttered to me. Now if you’re looking for an everything bucket Yojimbo (on the AppStore} should be on your list of applications to try. It is built with care, it’s just not a tool I need.