[tonymet]

I love your idea. This "life management system" space has tons of potential. It needs a unique combination of great data model, consistent syncing and flawless (responsive and attractive) user experience. I think in 5 years you'll see the next unicorn here.

I've used a few variants for "personal CRM / personal tracking"

  (a) "Unix" approach: csv files & encrypted text files (e.g. credentials) with gpg. Searching using grep.  Edit with Vim.  
  PROS:  compatibility, CLI tools.  cons: gets out of sync across devices, poor experience on mobile. 
  (b) tiddlywiki:  pros: works on desktops, good search, cons: poor sync to mobile, poor ux on mobile. 
  (c) "Google Ecosystem" e.g. Keep (notes), Contacts, Keep (todos), Calendar – Pros: syncs everywhere, cons: apps are slow and limited; also lock in
  (d) "Apple Ecosystem" – Notes, Contacts, Calendar, Keychain – Pros: good sync, responsive apps, Cons: lock-in.

A few "killer features" that I've been working on:

  (1) A dynamic "daily dashboard" that is a mix of metric graph along with easily manipulated spaces (like sticky notes, diagrams etc).  Currently I use Quip for this. 
  (2) Cyclical relationship reminders (like fitbit exercise reminders, but for your relationships). e.g. "jenny's birthday is in 3 days" or "you haven't called your uncle in 3 weeks, schedule a call".    A ring-based interface would be idea, with colors representing the health of that cycle.

I've thought on this a lot. Some key pillars

  (1) trust  – the most privileged data deserves the highest level of protection
  (1b) dynamic – users can manipulate and personalize as they would their home desktop & office space
  (2) responsiveness – adding a contact or note should take < 100ms . Zero latency – as fast as a pen and paper
  (3) cross-device consistency : a change should instantly sync across devices
  (4) comprehensive search
  (5) polished UX
  (6) mind-map : notes, contacts, events, reminders, photos should all link into each other.

[brnt]

You gave your A and B options poor sync ratings, but I would rate them 'best', because personal filesystem sync now has many reliable options (nextcloud, syncthing, resilio). I've been using those for close to a decade now and I am absolutely satisfied with its reliability compared to Dropbox which I used before. I do not like involving commercial parties in my sync or setting up/using 3rd party-specific sync, which means my workflow which I plan to be using for a significant part of my life my change at a moments notice due to api changes, cost changes and companies going belly up. The great thing with tools that store data in a filesystem is that I don't have to!

[tonymet]

i'll have to try nextcloud. My previous "owncloud" solutions were rsync and then qNap's cloud.

Can you talk more about your flow, including what tools you use ? I'm mostly curious about editing text gracefully on mobile devices.

[brnt]

I use Resilio, its a little easier to setup with machines that aren't your own (family, colleagues). I have a number of machines hooked up (a number of shares), and take/read notes on my phone (my personal wiki is in one of the shares, very convenient).

Keeping a node online is the hardest part, I used an old phone previously, now an old laptop as a nearly-always-on-node.