I had same issue of using several apps and not sticking to anyone. Now I forced myself to stick to apple notes and its working fine. plain text + cloud sync worked out for me.
Tired of note-taking apps
361–370 of 481 posts
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#362I use beastnotes and like it. I like the way it's organized into books and chapters.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#363[deleted]
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#364Personally I find Apple Notes the most convenient for quick jotting down of ideas etc. It’s not the most advanced in terms of features but it loads instantly, is quick to use and is available on all of my devices. Have tried numerous alternatives but they’ve never stuck e.g. they’re slow to start up or are fussy to use or don’t work well on one platform. For deeper sketching out of ideas, diagrams etc I really like C…
truer words never spoken. but what does this have to say about technology in general?
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#365The biggest problem for me is finding the stuff I wrote sometime that I might need again. What works best for me is to send myself a gmail. Google search makes finding things quick and simple.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#366Personally I find Apple Notes the most convenient for quick jotting down of ideas etc. It’s not the most advanced in terms of features but it loads instantly, is quick to use and is available on all of my devices. Have tried numerous alternatives but they’ve never stuck e.g. they’re slow to start up or are fussy to use or don’t work well on one platform. For deeper sketching out of ideas, diagrams etc I really like C…
I have been using Notability with great success for the last year. Having a fixed page like canvas doesn't strike me as a problem as I can move my diagrams around and scale them if I run out of space (huge advantage compared to drawing on paper).
Before Notability I was using mostly markdown files in git. However, using handwriting instead of typing has improved my cognition and creativity significantly. When I'm faced with a challenging task, I start doodling in Notability and keep being surprised at the creative solutions that emerge as I'm writing and sketching. There seems to be a richer thought process to be happending when I use my hands for thinking (rather than pressing keys on a keyboard).
Some additional spontaneous thoughts:
- Searchability of my handwritten notes is great, even after I export my notes to PDF.
- Exporting to PDF stores my notes in a long lasting standard format, preserving the character of my handwriting and diagrams.
- Being able to move/scale diagrams as I develop them has allowed me to start sketching more easily without any idea of where the diagram will go (e.g., ERD).
- Synching: I have Notability running on my desktop Mac, iPad, and iPhone. iPad Pro 12.9" is my primary device, together with Apple Pencil. Mac is for copying in screenshots from web pages, or large amounts of text. And I use it on iPhone on the go to capture ideas, access shopping lists, etc.
- Some document structure is useful: I have monthly work notes, yearly personal notes, "Inbox" on the go, and long running project notes that I keep adding to and tweak.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
An outliner app like WorkFlowy (YC S10) or TaskPaper is nice for adding nesting and the ability to zoom in and out. You can also directly link to any node, at least in WorkFlowy. My approach is similar to yours except it's one hierarchical entry per day. https://workflowy.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner
I'm sad there's still no good offline and native clone of Workflowy/Dynalist after all these years. I've tried many other outliner-like note-taking software, but I haven't found anything that is more comfortable to use than the outliner system in Workflowy/Dynalist. To paraphrase a quote I've heard online, "it fits my brain like a glove."
ActionOutline was my go-to native outliner on Windows.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#368Building a simple chat-like note taking app exactly for this.
Try InstaNote on iPhone (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instanote-pro/id1499393902?ls=... or Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.instanote.i...)
Keep very simple free form text, or lists, audio notes, images, documents. Everything is backed up in the cloud. Has built in support for sharing and repeated reminders.
The main goal is to make the interface super simple to use, support journaling like note-taking and fast search.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#369Personally I find Apple Notes the most convenient for quick jotting down of ideas etc. It’s not the most advanced in terms of features but it loads instantly, is quick to use and is available on all of my devices. Have tried numerous alternatives but they’ve never stuck e.g. they’re slow to start up or are fussy to use or don’t work well on one platform. For deeper sketching out of ideas, diagrams etc I really like C…
I agree with this and notes is what I use - apple notes with cloud sync, especially on the phone. Every now and then, I move it all out of notes into standalone text files in a directory tree in Dropbox. Why? Because several times now I've lost notes due to Apple's cloud "sync." On a few occasions, the note turned up in the trash (with no action on my part) or simply disappeared. Putting aside the spontaneous deletes…
I too have occasionally lost Apple notes due to what I've imagined must be cloud sync issues.
Whatever the cause, sometimes notes disappear and that is unforgivable.
If I cannot trust that something I store in a note won't ever disappear, unless I explicitly delete it, then I cannot trust the system period, and thus cannot use it.
I can't tell you how many times or how often it's happened. I think I must be on the third or fourth re-creation of my "Restaurants" list in the last couple of years, and that's just the one that comes to mind easiest.
Really disappointing that they couldn't get that right.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#370I think we all end up on our own journey of trying to find the note taking style that works best for us, and the variety of styles (git, onenote, evernote, pen & paper, notes app, etc.) has lent to a variety of applications being built to cater for each.
I've got my own slightly different style of note taking that works really well for me, but only when I start to work on multiple projects simultaneously and I need a way to track tasks across them all. When I fall back to one or two projects, then my note taking needs disappear. I joined the fray anyway and turned it into a web app so I could at least have something that _I_ want: https://screwnotes.com