Shameless Plug: ThinkType[1] comes pretty close to just writing things down in a notebook. It's probably even easier, though it doesn't support formats other then text.
Tired of note-taking apps
11–20 of 481 posts
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#12My theory about handwritten note-taking is that the bandwidth difference between thinking (fast) and writing (slow) is somehow extremely beneficial to the process of generating creative and evocative output. There have been so many journaling sessions which I started with the absolute conviction that I had nothing new to say, and after 4 pages of extremely creative and detailed ideas, surprising even to me, I had no choice but to exclaim, "Now where did that even come from?!". Maybe the hypnotic act of twirling the pen on paper slowly puts the mind into that sub-conscious creative state similar to what happens when one is about to fall asleep? It is honestly magical. I now use OneNote every day (because I can search through a large volume of notes easily), and I quite miss the dramatic revelations of pen on paper journaling. My notes were about programming and trading. For those who write fiction, I bet slow, old, typewriters are similarly more beneficial than the latest ergonomic keyboard and Word 365!
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#13I have used Apple Notes since I got my first iPhone, there's still notes from back then in there! Mainly for quick lists and things I need to remember, ideas, shopping, etc. Haven't really found any issues with it.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#14I've used Keep extensively, but have been slowly migrating over to Notion as I need more structure than what tags in Keep can afford me. The problem is probably me, I save a lot of stuff. But, Keep has become sluggish as a result. I'm not great at utilising tags, so oftentimes I'll just scroll through "everything" (sometimes narrowed by say searching for "images") and I have pretty decent visual memory so I'll readil…
Hmm, that's an interesting take, and I agree with all your points. Notion is decent, but it requires some learning curve to begin with. I also feel that the apps that optimize for taking notes in a structured, connected manner compromise on the UX front. There's no one size fits all.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#15I write a lot when designing software, but hate paper, so I ordered reMarkable 2, which I expect to change my note-taking habits completely. I plan to write everything into it.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#16I have used Apple Notes since I got my first iPhone, there's still notes from back then in there! Mainly for quick lists and things I need to remember, ideas, shopping, etc. Haven't really found any issues with it.
That's great!
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#17Lol. This is exactly what I was thinking the other day. Everyone is churning out new notetaking tools as if we don't have enough already.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#18I write a lot when designing software, but hate paper, so I ordered reMarkable 2, which I expect to change my note-taking habits completely. I plan to write everything into it.
I did the same thing!
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#19I write a lot when designing software, but hate paper, so I ordered reMarkable 2, which I expect to change my note-taking habits completely. I plan to write everything into it.
I have that similar feeling, I don't want a bunch of paper around, but writing on paper is just SUPERIOR to anything digital, as it's so much easier to freeform write, add sketches, etc. That's why a bought (several sizes now) a Rocketbook. Paperish, can write/draw, easy to digitize and reusable.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#20I gave up with the commercial and open source offerings and instead just wrote my own solution.
All notes are markdown, stored in a SQLite DB with full text search. It has a simple frontend and you can drag/drop images onto the editor and it will upload them.
To facilitate quick note taking I wrote a FUSE driver for it and have bound CMD+N to open a command line scratchpad window (I use i3wm) where I can write and edit notes using conventional *nix tooling.
It's not perfect, nor slick, but it works for me.