I am using a refs.bib file for writing papers, as I'm sure everyone does. However, the problem is that I don't have a quick way to refer to a particular paper when working on a different, non-latex document. For example, let's say I'm handwriting a note or reminder to myself, and I want to refer to a specific paper without using the entire title (since the titles are usually unwieldy). I want to refer to the paper using some shorthand notation like (TOPIC-ID#).

The problem is that refs.bib assigns a single reference to each bibtex entry, but those references change depending on where they are in the document, etc. So, reference [1] today might be reference [7] tomorrow.

Is there a electronic citation tool (perhaps not latex/refs.bib) that allows me to fix a unique identifier for each paper that won't change? E.g. (TOPIC-ID#) would be perfect. Or, is there a way to force latex to organize my papers in the refs.bib file this way?