Ask HN: How do you take idea notes / voice memos / reminders to yourself?

I maintain my TODO list in Pocket Informant[1], TODOs are synchronized with toodledo[2] and calendar is synchronized with Google Calendar. I am a strong proponent of moving TODOs to calendar to block out time and understand what I am doing next.

For notes, I am using Notebooks App for iOS[3]. The biggest selling point is being able to synchronize with the directory hierarchy of markdown files via WebDAVS. On the desktop, the same directory can be accessed via applications like Simplenote[7] or nvALT[6]. I use my own web app and even a bunch of shell and Python scripts working with this directory as I like to experiment with information organization features specific to me.

In general, to discover new tools, I like to read UsesThis[4] interviews. It has very good Signal to Noise ratio once you start reading the interviews but quickly levels off as people tend to use mostly the same well-established tools. ProductHunt[5] is low signal-to-noise ratio, with lots of new unproven but interesting tools.

[1] https://www.pocketinformant.com/ [2] https://www.toodledo.com/ [3] https://www.notebooksapp.com/ [4] https://usesthis.com/ [5] https://www.producthunt.com/ [6] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [7] https://simplenote.com/

I write markdown files with Typora, backed up and synced with Resilio sync. I still use Evernote for clipping web sites. I'm working on a web clipper that saves directly to markdown so I can finally ditch Evernote.

I replaced my wallet with this:

https://www.levenger.com/International-Pocket-Briefcase-2269...

It has 3x5 cards and a pen. This is basically my real-world inbox. I jot down notes, recommendations, ideas. The important next step is to regularly empty the inbox, so that useful jottings end up turned into something that gets handled. E.g., times and dates go into my calendar, tasks go into my kanban board, books I might want to read go in my Amazon wishlist, etc.

I use standard notes, but I'll be honest, I'm not chuffed about the whole "hosted" plugins system.

Maybe I'm completely off-base, but while SN only ever see the encrypted blobs, editors often (almost always) require me to send over my plain-text to a server which then sends it back to me. That's not really end-to-end... what's the motivation behind the hosted plugins, and not downloading signed binaries/code that operate through a permissions-based API?

Emacs org-mode.

If someone sends me an e-mail about something that needs doing for work, I hit a keybinding, and a buffer pops up with a TODO item, by default scheduled for today, with a link back to that e-mail (and any selected text added as well). I write a quick headline, then C-c C-c and it's filed under "Misc" in my work org file. Sometimes I hit C-c C-w to immediately file it under some project heading instead (not much harder because of auto-completion). Since it's scheduled in my work org file, it shows up in my work agenda, which I open every morning and whenever I need a task to do. When I'm working on the task, I might write further notes for that task under that heading. It's all plain text, easily greppable, versioned in git.

I have a non-work org file and capture template too. I go through the non-work agenda a bit more rarely than the work one (spending less time on work is on my non-work TODO), but it's a nice way of sending messages to yourself in the future ("* TODO renew passport SCHEDULED: "). And I feel pretty confident in the system, since I've been using it for over ten years …

If I'm not at my computer and I get an idea or something, I'll typically just send myself a very short message over IRC. I find phone-typing a pain, and rarely have the need to look at my agenda on the phone (though I know there are org-mode phone apps should the need arise).