Over the last 20 years or so I've tried: index cards, wunderlist, todo.txt, remember the milk, Asana, Any.do, Evernote, Google Notebook, Simplenote, Trello, Workflowy, Google Keep, Bear Notes, org-mode, and probably a dozen others. Three years ago I started using Apple Notes and told my wife "if you see me trying anything else at all, yell at me". I've been pretty happy with it and am much more productive just using something rather than trying to find some magic new tool.
Been using Apple Notes for 8 years now and can't imagine using any other tool at this point. Everything else is too complicated and with distracting thrills, or is too barebones. Notes is the perfect balance, and I like that the notes can be totally offline.
The only thing that needs improvement is the search function.
EDIT: Another thing I really like about Notes is how notes can be password protected, which includes full encryption, and they can be unlocked with your fingerprint. If the user doesn't interact with the app for a few minutes, the notes automatically relock themselves. This is great for journaling because I can be confident that the more candid thoughts I express won't be accidentally read by anyone.
Maybe you know about this but one of the things that helped me with Apple Notes search was discovering there was a 'Find Notes' shortcut action. It allows you to filter by folder while searching by name, body, date created, etc...
It works out to be just about as efficient as if it was built into the app since you can use Siri to run it by saying/typing the shortcut name.
I started with text files in Notepad, then learnt from a friend how to use Freemind to organise notes as hierarchical mindmaps instead. It worked great, but search was broken (DFS but only able to find results in one treepath?!). Years passed, and I needed something to take notes with on mobile, and Google Keep was the simplest fit. But Freemind and Keep were both still too inconvenient on desktop, so at some point I ended up back at text files. I skipped all other note-taking apps over the years because I was convinced by people here who said plaintext was best.
In the last two years, though, my current text file has gotten too unwieldy to use. I have to do a bunch of searching to get to sections (or remember their character-exact names). Then last week, I lost a day's research notes because Google Drive crashed and didn't sync until it was too late, overwriting my work. Clearly, I'd outgrown my setup.
This last Sunday, I researched note-taking apps that don't use proprietary formats or cloud storage: Obsidian? Foam? Dendron? Logseq? I went with Obsidian, which while closed-source, keeps everything in Markdown files, so I'll always be able to use them in the future. (Logseq's different approach also seemed promising, and it's open-source too; I'd recommend trying that too.) I set up Obsidian-git for reasonable syncing that wouldn't result my notes being overwritten by accident. It all took a few hours, not endless tinkering.
I've migrated a few note sections into it, done a few diagrams and code blocks. Works well. I think I'm set for the next 10 years.
Obsidian's ecosystem is incredible. You can make Obsidian a queryable database, a longform book editor a la Scrivener, or a gilded tabletop RPG campaign book.
Half of what makes Obsidian so great is that they've encouraged modding so heavily.
.txt was never going to cut it for me, I always include images like drawings, photos and screenshots etc.
Logseq is open source, reasonable file format, stable, extensible, has a reasonable plan for funding itself without lock ins, and, for me, is among the smoothest I have used.
Notably missing from old OneNote 2016:
- shared notebooks w/indication of updates
- smoother syncing
Notable upgrades from OneNote 2016:
- still exists
- more structured (OneNote can out text and objects everywhere)
- easily extensible
- queryable
- taggable (Tags in OneNote aren't really tags, only glorified emojis)
- open source
As for the modern version of OneNote, I have given it up. It almost isn't comparable.
Yep, good reasons to use Logseq. I picked Obsidian over Logseq because of the larger community, and because I thought the former's UI looked suitable for hierarchical notes in main categories, which is my usual approach. I go to the right folder and append to the end of the relevant note. I do like Logseq's more free-flowing, block-tagging, hypertext-journal approach, but thought I didn't really need the journal format for now.
If Logseq can also do hierarchical organising/browsing with a simple sidebar interface, I think I'll give it a go. Does it work well for that use case? What's nice is that you can run both Logseq and Obsidian on the same Markdown files, since they're (mostly compatible) Markdown, so I'm not too worried about switching as needed or even using both.
I'm not aware of any extension that gives you a hierarchical sidebar on the left.
The right side however has a built in "Contents" page - which tells you what it is for - only as far as I know one has to fill it out oneselves.
That said, my goal was not to convert you or anyone. I am a NetBeans user myself so I know a bit or two about others telling me why I should switch to "clearly superior alternatives" and I don't want to do that to others ;-)
Hah, appreciate it. Although I actually do like finding out about better alternatives and weigh the benefits of switching. It's good to know what people are happy about, even if it isn't quite for oneself.
Sounds like Obsidian fits me better than Logseq for now (for the inherent hierarchical organisation). Though one of these days I'll try running Logseq on the same files just for a different view and to try out journalling.
You maybe already know, but I write it anyway in case you or someone else find it interesting:
AFAIK Logseq docs encourage new users to put everything under Journal and just tag the relevant blocks. Multiple hierarchical tags are possible, as are aliases, which comes in handy, e.g. I have examples of good ux nested three steps down from root, but in practice I write [[Good UX]] and paste the screenshot and I am done, it shows up at the right place, but is a lot more readable in my journal. BTW, that alias could have been #GoodUX as well and I would have gotten away with hashtag notation.)
> As for the modern version of OneNote, I have given it up. It almost isn't comparable.
Agreed, that's why I'm happy they basically kicked "onenote for windows 10" to the curb and leaned back into the win32 style full desktop application on Windows, AKA onenote 2021. It even has full dark mode and dictation now!
> the win32 style full desktop application on Windows, AKA onenote 2021.
It exists?
Edit: I checked and it does exist! Thanks!
I installed it and verified tags are just as cute as before.
I don't have time to verify if the old brilliant sync via file share feature works longer, but the rest of it looks good. I probably should test OCR of pasted images too, now that I think of it, although the OCR in Windows Power Tools has replaced it for me.
I'll probably not use it much again now that I have Logseq and thankfully don't work at many "Microsoft only" shops but if sync via fileshare works it is back as my recommendation for smaller shops that insist on Microsoft centric setups.
I'd probably also personally prefer it to Confluence on small projects (and that thankfully means almost every project I touch).
Currently I sponsor the project and use the built in sync but it is a bit rough around the edges still and I have seen a solution for automatic conflict resolution using syncthing.
Do you use a script or something or are you just careful?
I can also recommend using Syncthing with obsidian. I use it to synchronize my vault to all my devices. I also added it to my existing Raspberry Pi server that's always online, so I always have a distributor instance running and don't need to worry about sync issues.
I'd tried paper notebooks (including really tiny pocketable ones) and Google Keep before picking up Apple Notes. Notes is the only one I've not had to work at continuing to use—it's just there, and I use it, and it works fine-to-great at everything I use it for, and that's it.
If they ever turn it into some slow webshit thing, that may set me looking for another solution, but until then, no complaints on the note-taking front.
I barely even try to organize it, and just let search do its thing. If I have some particular project (say, I'm DMing an RPG and composing & organizing my world/encounter/session stuff in there) I may try to keep all that in one category/folder for easier browsing of multiple related notes at once, but otherwise, I just dump stuff in and let search bring it back for me if I need it.
In the end there’s actually doing stuff. And there’s putting it on a TODO list. Both are types of activity but only one actually got something real done
Is there an easy way to link other notes in Apple Notes?
I've used Obsidian for years now. Mainly because it's frictionless, I can easily link notes, and just Markdown files. I don't spend time looking for cool new plugins or new methodologies, so I don't have those temptations. I wish there were a better mobile app, though.
Easy way? No. You can create a weird workaround though, on both mac and ios you share the link invite yourself, and then in share options you copy the link and then paste it in your note.
However, I don't really recommend this as now you have a bunch of icloud links littering your notes and can become confused easily trying to determine which notes are actually shared and which ones were just shared with yourself.
It's one of the biggest weaknesses of Apple Notes, and the only reason I (tried) searching for alternatives.
I installed obsidian today and spent the entire time configuring plugins etc. I uninstalled it for something simpler and less about configuration combos
