How to Take Better Notes

• UUID: 2af6577c-11d5-4d7d-8709-7df674c6ed9a
• Keywords: Information Management, Note-taking Applications, User Interface

Notes are information we record with the wish to retrieve and use in the future. So one important part is the easiness (efficiency) to record and another part is the easiness (efficiency) to retrieve.

Use guides

• Better to keep notes at as less places as possible

Applications

Apple Notes

Parts I like

• Free
• from big company so that you don't usually need to worry about many things such as data loss and ability to improve in the future
• works on iPhone, iPad and MacBook as native applications
• works on web browsers as a web application
• offline usable with decentralized and synchronized data storage
• supports Apple Pencil on iPad well enough
• in general, good enough user interface design (rich gestures, keyboard shortcuts such as tab indentation)
• easy to embed and manage non-text objects especially images
• possibly best integration with iPhone and iPad especially when using Apple Pencil

Parts I don't like

• Proprietary note formats
• No easy exports
• No easy note management although hierarchical folders and tags

Best for or I use it for

• handwritten notes
• quick notes on the go
• notes always accessible on the go

Microsoft OneNote

Parts I like

• Free
• from big company so that you don't usually need to worry about many things such as data loss and ability to improve in the future
• works on iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Android phones and Windows PCs as native applications
• works on web browsers as a web application
• offline usable with decentralized and synchronized data storage although often network issues and not as offline-adequate as Apple Notes
• supports Apple Pencil on iPad well enough and supports Microsoft Surface Pen on Microsoft Surface computers well enough
• in general, good enough user interface design (rich gestures, keyboard shortcuts such as tab indentation)
• easy to embed and manage non-text objects especially images and PDFs

Parts I don't like

• Proprietary note formats
• No easy exports
• No easy note management although 2 level notebook design

Best for or I use it for

• handwritten notes
• on-image notes
• notes to work on on all major platforms

Zettlr

MarkDown editor and MarkDown note manager.

Parts I like

• Free
• Open source
• Workspaces
• Wiki-style links
• Tags although somehow problematic
• Spell-checking
• Image live preview

Obsidian

MarkDown editor and MarkDown note manager.

Parts I like

• Free
• Vaults therefore easy to manage attachments especially images
• In-line live preview
• Wiki-style links and back-links
• Supports plugins

TextMate

General text editor with good support of MarkDown files.

• Free
• Open source
• Supports plugins

Notion

Note-taking system

Parts I like

• Free
• Exports as open-format MarkDown and CSV files
• Supports MarkDown syntax

Applications I Once Tried

• Joplin
• Logseq

* cached version, generated at 2022-08-06 14:01:56 UTC.