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What do you use for note taking/writing?
I've been using Obsidian for notes for a year now and iA Writer for writing prose for a decade (wow!) and love both of them for their simplicity, cloud sync, and most importantly, their innate ability to get out of the way and let me work.
But I'm always interested in other people's workflows! What do you use to write or take notes?
I'm using logseq of late - swapped from Obsidian.
Its totally changed the game for me and notes, it just works with my brain. I'm even at the point I think it will become my task/project manager.
The main power for me has been the idea of journal pages that you drop your notes/thoughts into with tags, which can be picked up in the tag pages later/rearranged/dragged into/always found.
It is structured a lot more like my brain - I used to find it really hard to take notes as I always had to figure out where to store the note. And put things in the wrong place, etc.
This looks very similar to another new app I tried, Anytype. Eventually, I didn't end up using it because it wasn't super intuitive to me and I prefer the interlinking and tagging systems in Obsidian and don't need much more than that since my note-taking is almost entirely text-based.
Obsidian is great and if it's your jam keep it! Ironically I found obsidian is bit cluttered and when I tried to bring up notes on Android when doing tasks away from an computer I found it super frustrating to even find the search option to find my note.
I believe in in the minority there though
I am trying so hard to love Obsidian, but the mobile interface kills it
This is interesting, I didn't see this last time I evaluated note taking tools. It looks really cool.
Worth a look. Hit me up if you need some advice, but note I only started using it recently myself.
The learning curve to figure out how to use it hurt my head - some members in a community I'm in insisted it was worth it.
Checkout YT - tools on tech was a good one that helped me grok it.
I don't see it on the Play Store. Is this thing brand new? Doesn't look like it from Google—there's also a post from last year asking about store availability. The post is on Reddit though, which seems to be down for me at the moment.
The way you described it kind of sounds like how I use Keep, so I was interested in checking it out.
I just spent the weekend setting up Linux at the recommendation of someone else on Tildes though. So I'm a bit tech-fatigued now to figure out APKs for my phone.
The android download appears to be an apk from github rather than through the play store
https://logseq.com/downloads
Never heard of this before either, I’m using Obsidian but it looks neat
Yeah take a break, Linux is a big change! The android app is in beta and yes needs to be loaded from apk from their GitHub repo. It is as 'easy' as clicking the file, and allowing your browser to install from unknown sources.
However, take a break and use your tech for a bit!
Which Linux distro did you get talked into?
Got it, thanks! Just wanted to confirm if I wasn't just missing it somewhere, e.g., maybe it's only on a regional playstore.
Fedora!
Brilliant, I've bounced around a bunch of distros and landed very happy on Fedora last 2 years and couldn't be happier. Enjoy!
So I mostly use a Macbook for college outside of the few programs that require Windows (MultiSim, I'm looking at you).
I've tried Evernote and OneNote, but I fall back on Notion for very large note sets, and the iOS/macOS Notes app for everything else.
The simplicity and ease of use of the Apple Notes app is great. It has enough options to satisfy most of my note taking needs.
Also, I've been in class taking notes on my laptop, then the professor draws something complex, and I just press a menu option and my laptop opens up the camera on my phone, I take the picture, and then drops the photo right in. Or I can draw on my phone and have it insert it into my notes. I find it wildly convenient.
Same here. The standard max/iOS notes app just works well. It’s in all my devices
Apple Notes is my preferred solution as well. In fact, I use it for mostly everything. For me, it's a highly intentional choice. I spent way too much time a few years ago bouncing between different tools and seeking a "perfect" productivity system. After some time (as well as an ADHD diagnosis, medication, and therapy) though, I realized that these tools and over-complicated systems were aiding in my procrastination.
I moved to Apple Notes in an effort to simplify my approach to being organized. I keep notes, checklists, and more in there and usually stick to searching for things rather than organizing via tags or folders. The urge to procrastinate via perfectionism creeps in every once in a while, but I try to push through when it does.
I'm the same way. I was using notability for school and it was so great for that purpose, but in everyday life, I can't be that organized. I just need my notes when I need them. Any time I try to get too detailed with how I organize my thoughts, things get lost or never done and forgotten forever.
I like Notion. I found it a steep learning curve though. Apple Notes is really good but I don’t like the way you can’t easily export multiple notes. I used it for a long time and then had a terrible time getting 1000+ notes out when I wanted to. I sort of managed it with a 3rd party app on the desktop (I forget the name), but it wasn’t a trouble free process and I don’t think I’d go back now unless Apple added bulk export.
I wrote a 70,000 word novel on Notes. Not all at once obv but it’s amazing to be able to send to the Mac later and compile. Being able to keep a string of notes and write anywhere, it’s a great tool.
I use Obsidian for note-taking during study sessions, where I have the time to sort, tag, and link them together in an organized structure.
When I'm taking notes in meetings or classes, I simply open NeoVim in my "Drafts" folder and start jotting down the information in bullet points. This approach allows me to stay focused on the class while capturing the key points for future reference. Afterwards, I can organize these draft notes within Obsidian's structured framework.
Holy cow, I feel ancient. Haven't had to take notes for ages (havent been in university since '85 and self employed for the last 16 yrs)
But I just wrote a book in plain old Word and now Im using LibreOffice Writer. If its simple and short to do list I just use the Memo app on my phone.
Thank you! I use google docs which is basically just Word but online, so I can write on both my phone and desktop. It's nice to see I am not the only one who goes simple when writing fiction. For me it's notes app for grocery shopping and word / google docs for fiction.
I love Google Docs. My only complaint is the way it starts to chug once the file gets too big, but of course I forget what the line is.
I've started with consolidating all of my notes in Joplin from text files and iOS Notes and scraps of paper. Everything from basic to-do lists to financial planning and a collection of short stories. Encrypted and synchronized through a privacy-friendly local Nextcloud provider.
Offline I use a basic bullet journal.
Looked into iA Writer in the past and liked it, but I didn't have any iOS devices at the time. The current price is too steep for me, for what I'd be using it for.
ETA: When I want to collaborate with others, I use CryptPad. Encrypted, open source, hosted in EU, but you can host your own.
The cost for iA now is very high. I have no idea what I paid for it when I started using it, but it was nowhere near what it is now.
Generally, I use pen and paper to take notes. If I'm near a computer, and using paper is somehow not convenient, I'll quickly open Notepad.
If I'm taking notes, it's quicker and easier to write than to type. I'm fine with being messy and unstructured when I'm writing. If I'm typing, then I just can't be messy: I'll backspace typos; I'll tidy up formatting; and so on. That's basically contrary to the concept of quickly taking notes. It's too slow. Messy writing is quicker.
But, based on the answers in this thread, I suspect my "notes" are not the same as other people's "notes". What sort of notes are people taking that requires installing multiple software programs to do it?
I love that every answer safe for yours and one other is all sorts of programs lol
Meanwhile I'm just sitting here like, "pen and paper, what do you mean "what do I use"?"
Unfortunately, writing with pen and paper is not accessible for me! I have arthritis, and can't grip something like a pen for anything more than a few minutes. Typing, however, doesn't bother my arthritis.
Speaking for myself, I write novels and keep notes related to ideas/structures/plans/reminders, so on. I use two programs because Obsidian, which I use for notes and references, is too involved for writing directly, and iA Writer, which I write in, is too simple to navigate complex interrelated notes.
Have you ever tried a fountain pen? Ballpoints take way too much pressure to make a mark. Fountain pens just glide across the paper like something between a marker and a paintbrush.
This is true! I've tried them on a recommendation of a friend, and the experience of writing is really delightful. I totally understand why people swear by them. Unfortunately for me, my arthritis makes the actual holding of anything pen sized the problem, unless I were willing to hold it in my fist.
They do make large, fat pen grips. I know quite a few people who have issues similar to yours due to unstable joints and that’s one of the tips they’re given.
lol you and I finding each other a lot in the same places lately.
You can see my answer above for somewhat of an explanation.
I take notes for technical things, TTRPG game design, graphic work, political essays and more so my needs vary between needing to sketch out a level/building layout, a quick idea while I’m in the bath, some code fragment, or say the beginnings of a conclusion for an essay on the history of labor action between 1880-1929 in Appalachia I might find myself working on.
So I’ve got a bunch of mediums to take notes on/in.
Oh. They're the sort of things I would write notes about.
But, then again, I'm a middle-aged man who grew up before computers were a thing, and who has a bit of a Luddite streak. So, if all the cool kids want to get out a device to take notes, good on them.
Gotta keep up with the times ;)
I'd love to use pen and paper to take my notes to avoid being dependent on a battery at all times for recording information. However, the downside is that I write much slower compared to typing, which puts me at a significant disadvantage when taking notes in classes and meetings. Additionally, paper notes are not easily editable (at least not intuitively). I often find myself initially defining concepts incorrectly and constantly going back and forth in my notes to correct those mistakes. If I were solely reliant on a notebook, my notes would end up looking like a messy, crossed-out disaster.
Joplin, synced via Nextcloud storage running on a cheap Hetzner box
Joplin user here, I just use OneDrive as my sync destination since I wasn't using it for anything else and I have 50GB there for free. And since it's E2EE I'm not worried privacy-wise.
I use WorldAnvil for the majority of my writing, because I primarily write for my Pathfinder setting so it's a nice place to have my session notes and world notes collated. I'm also a big fan of the extra prompts they give and the map, timeline, and family tree features, because I like shiny fancy things.
I'm not gonna lie, I use gdocs for most other prose-style writing still because the flexibility with cloud storage and mobile access is just superior to everything else I've tried. Especially when I want to share links out and have others edit/comment.
I use google docs too. Currently working on a novel and it's just a google docs file. I have one for first draft and one for second. I use the train for work so that gives me 1.5 hours to write on mobile with little distractions. Desktop is a lot faster but mobile is sometimes more convenient so syncing between mobile and desktop + offline files are so convenient.
Everything lol
I have multiple notepads and drawing pads of various sizes, iOS notes across my pad and phone, notepad++, obsidian and post it notes.
My notes are contextual so for some things I need to draw them and I might or might not want a grid for that, maybe I need a quick digital sketch so iPad for that, or an idea strikes while I’m in the bath or walking - that goes in the notes app.
lol. I’m a firm believer in NEVER LET THE IDEA ESCAPE. You will forget, I know you think you won’t but it’ll be gone and that’s such a huge tragedy.
I was just scrolling after the first few posts looking for n++ that thing and its glorious infinite tabs. I haven't found anything exactly like it, closest fit on ios is either textastic or kodex, and for android Squircle CE. I wish there was a 1:1 port
I use Obsidian too! I settled on it after using almost all the other popular alternatives. My workflow is Zotero+Obsidian for research, I use Zotero as a web clipper/bookmarking tool and it's connected with Obsidian so if I want to reference anything I've saved, it creates a reference note with metadata from Zotero. Edit: I wrote a little bit more about my system in this comment. I wouldn't have started using Obsidian nearly as much if I wasn't using Zettlekasten to organize my notes. The biggest change was moving away from topic/interest-based folders to just formats (which meant I didn't have to think about which category it would fall under if there were multiple) and then just having a section for original notes.
For longer writing, I'll use Microsoft Word on my laptop or Jotterpad on my phone, but it gets copied into an Obsidian note. Occasionally, I'll use Google Docs for any writing I'm seeking feedback on, but the link to that is also saved in Obsidian.
Markdor on Android. It's the only app I've found with support for Markdown, nested folders and sync.
Organizing my notes with basic bold or headers is faster for me in Markdown than using a navigation bar. Since I often posted my finished stories to Reddit it makes sense to use the same system.
Nested folders are a hard requirement for me. I hate seeing my recipes, worldbuilding notes, stories, shopping lists in one massive pile. I need a few layers of folders to keep things under control. I don't have the discipline to keep on top of a tag system. My Gmail folder is a war crime.
On PC I generally use Notepad. Fancy editing tools interrupt my flow. I don't even spellcheck until the story is mostly done. (I do have a weird number of .txt files with **bold** text that isn't highlighted because I planned to post them to Reddit)
I originally used Obsidian, then Joplin, but now I self-host a Trilium Notes instance. It’s got a solid web-app interface for both PC and mobile, syncing just works, it has CSS theming, and lets you create your own widgets and JS “code notes” for scripting custom app functionality.
My one gripe is that it’s not a flat file structure like Obsidian — all of the notes in Trilium gets stored in a single “Document” database file, but it’s not much of a hassle to use an app to browse/edit it.
I use Notion. It's not perfect (no offline mode, apparently can get a bit slow if you have a huge database), but its database features are nice and it's pretty easy to make notes look nice. I like the hotkeys and shortcuts. Compatible with markdown, easy for formatting code snippets, just has features that I need/use. I tried Obsidian, but the license didn't allow me to use it for work stuff, so that was a no-go for me. This has probably been the longest I've stuck with a single note taker.
Interesting about the license; might you explain more if you can? I was put off by Notion's pricing, and the offline is a definite killer for me, since I don't always have web access, but it looks beautiful.
Obsidian's personal license does not cover any commercial use. Their definition of commercial use is:
I work for a for-profit company that has more than 2 people, so by their definition, I can't use it for work-related notes.
Notion doesn't seem to have a distinction between their plans on what you're putting into your account. Individual account (free tier) is perfectly fine for me because I'm not sharing or collaborating on those notes. Their paid tiers are more around organized team-based knowledge bases instead of personal notes.
Wow, I had no idea Obsidian's license was so restrictive. How ridiculous!
Good to know about Notion; if I get tired of Obsidian, I'll take a look again. Thanks!
Fellow iA Writer user here! I've used it for todo-lists and I'm using it to write a book. I love the modesty of the app. Just makes me feel like anything I put in there is good enough.
I keep my personal life inside OneNote, and then I keep all my work stuff in various text files in a folder structure and use Notepad++. I have my entire work structure saved locally but a copy on the cloud so I can get at those files and notes wherever.
When I was taking classes, I used LectureNotes on my Samsung Note tablet. The physical act of writing out my notes by hand helped me remember the information much better than typing would have. And having it on the tablet meant I didn't need to wrangle a bunch of paper notebooks.
My overall notes and brain matter stuff is on Obsidian at the moment. I really like the minimalist interface, and I don't really feel like changing anything at the moment.
My journaling though is on Samsung Notes - I bought an S23 Ultra and fell in love with the feel of the stylus to the point where I bought myself a Tab S8 as well. The stylus experience is absolutely wildly good. So my journal is handwritten, and some filtered parts of it go to Obsidian where I can reference it back.
My fiction writing is done on Scrivener. Absolute monster software - love every bit of it.
I used to only use word docs, then I transitioned to Obsidian, loved it, but hated the development process, the allure of too many barely working extensions, and it's focus on being more of a text document organizer than a notebook.
I now use the E2E open source Notesnook , the development speed and new features are astoundingly fast. Reminds me of a super powered evernote.
I use one note for most things as it easily synchs with outlook which allows me to send meeting notes to the people that I meet with for work. It's not sleek, fun, or pretty, but it works.
Likewise. I mainly take notes for things for work, things I'm working on, so I tend to use OneNote for that. Since this is my work account, my thinking is that if anything happens to me (I quit or I leave or whatever), then my colleagues will have access to it all. Even OneNote is better than my previous scrawls on scrap paper that I tended to lose.
For personal stuff, I often simply use Sublime Text. It's just a text editor, but I'll just pop it open real quick and make my notes, and then close the program without saving it, since the program still remembers the content, even though it's not formally saved to a file. Most of my personal notes are ephemeral anyway. Do this thing in a game, deposit money in a bank, reminders for grocery shopping. Those don't need to be saved forever. Downside is that notes aren't synced across computers or devices; after all it's just a text editor, why would it? That can be a little annoying at times.
Agree, for personal stuff I use google keep because I can access across all devices.
Work, however, is always done on OneNote because it is a part of the Microsoft ecosystem and works well for what it is.
I have a really hard time organizing when it comes to note taking. I'm just too anal about formatting and tagging and things like that. Tools that make it super easy to do this make it worse for me, because I always get way too into the weeds about the organization to the point where it's more unhelpful to me. At work, I just use OneNote. Simple bullets, and just writing things down.
I wish I could be more organized, but my brain just shuts down. If anyone who used to feel like this and found a tool that really worked for you, please let me know, I would love to organize without losing my mind.
I used to be just like you! My problem was that I would try to fit my notes within an app ecosystem (like tags or formats or calls), and it would be perfect at first. Then, I would stumble upon a note that would not quite fit in one tag or heading, but it also would not quite be relevant enough for its own category. I would then find myself overwhelmed by the ecosystem, become frustrated, and uninstall the app entirely.
Organizing and classifying information can be a surprisingly creative and personal process, and I feel that you can't find a one-size-fits-all system that applies to all people and situations. For me, the more a tool offers you the freedom to develop your own system gradually, the better it will be for you long-term.
The keyword here is gradually. Even if you are creating your own personal knowledge management system from scratch, it will not be perfect at first. In fact, it will probably be a mess, and it is very important to acknowledge and accept that. With time, you will get better at sorting and classifying information in a way that is relevant to you, and that is just like training a muscle.
However, it is important to also accept that there will never be a perfect tool or even the perfect system, even if you built it yourself. That is also fine. You have to see it as a tool, not a hobby or a project (this is something that took me some time to realize). If it is being useful to you, then it is fulfilling its function. The important thing here is the notes themselves, not the way they are organized or sorted. Although you will find that it is worth taking some time to organize them (at least for me, it was a game-changer to go through this process).
Ha, funny! I use the exact same setup, Obsidian and iA. Any Obsidian plugins you like? What's your vault setup in a nutshell?
Twinsies!
I honestly keep myself as streamlined as possible, because it's so damn easy to fall into plugin hell. For the current novel I'm working on, I have only three plugins: Advanced Tables; Luca Orio's Image Gallery; and the ubiquitous Style Settings. For previous iterations, I've also used GarbleText (which iirc is unsupported but still works but great for accountability screenshots), Bartender, Fantasy Calendar, Hider, Grandfather, and BetterInternalLinkInserter.
As for setup, I actually keep everything from iA and Obsidian in one Obsidian folder; iA lets me write without distraction, and Obsidian is better for organizing notes and so on. I have image folders, and a cascade of folders for notes > settings/characters/meta/research and so on. I end up using Obsidian as just a mini-file explorer, and it works for me.
What about you? What's your setup like? Any plugins I need?
iA stays in the iA folder, Obsidian stays in the Obsidian folder. They don't interact at all. As for plugins, I like Make.MD since I'm coming from Notion, I like April's Automatic Timelines for worldbuilding, Linter and Digital Garden to publish what I'm working on to my website. Make.MD makes it pretty bloated by default, but other than that I try to keep it light
I'm definitely going to check out Automatic Timelines since most of my timelines are in bullet lists right now. Thanks for the rec!
I only use a note taking app on desktop because on mobile I only need to keep some short temporary notes, so I put them in Note to self in Signal. On desktop I use Zim. I like that it's offline, cross platform, let's you edit in simple wysiwyg editor, and notes are stored as simple human readable files in a directory.
I'm surprised to not see my note-taking tool of choice, notion. It's simple, cloud-based, and free.
I used to use Notion, but I soon grew weary when I realized that all my personal notes were in the hands of a big corporation. Not having access to locally synchronized copies of my own creations is a serious dealbreaker for me.
I have to use Notion for work. I find it very unintuitive. I can't work out what it's doing half the time. And the other half of the time, I can't figure out how to do what I want.
My notes are all over the place. I've got some in Google Drive, Google Keep, Notability (on my iPad), Apple Notes, and Samsung Notes. For writing short essays for myself, I'll keep them in Obsidian.
Depends on the type of note. For more "formal" cases where more organization, interlinking, etc are useful I've been using a fairly minimal Obsidian setup, and for cases that are more random, less well-defined, or short-term I use Apple Notes.
The amount of note taking I do in any app depends a lot on my mental state, though. Whenever I have more mental subprocesses going I take notes less, which can easily become a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle since taking notes lets me offload things from my mind.
I use pencil (not pen) and paper.
Specifically I use either Mars Staedtler or Blackwing 602 pencils and A5-sized Midori MD notebooks.
I use the Midori notebooks because they come without covers, so they lie flat on the table even if you're near the end. They're high quality paper and stand up well to reasonable wear and tear.
I use pencils because they're superior in almost every way to pens, yet we're acclimatized to view them as children's things.
I take notes in a minimalist variant of bullet journaling. If you remove all the Etsy-level shit with midliners and washi tape and elaborate "spreads", bullet journaling is a fantastic tool/system.
Just have Markdown notes synced to a Nextcloud instance, using QOwnNotes on desktop and Nextcloud Notes on mobile. Before that, I was using Simplenote. There are some other note-taking options with Nextcloud integration too, but haven’t explored them all yet.
I just use plain Markdown files and whatever text editor I happen to be using at the time. Some of them go in a
Wiki/folder, but more often than not they're scattered across my filesystem in relevant locations. If I want to refer to another note, I'll jot down its path in the note, and if I want to find something, I'll justrgacross my home folder. If I'm publishing anything then it's pretty trivial to run the Markdown through pandoc and get back an HTML/PDF/etc file.For schoolwork, I usually use physical notebooks. On occasion I'll type notes for some classes (just in Markdown again). I make liberal use of inline LaTeX in Markdown and am about fast enough to transcribe from a lecture: though I much prefer handwriting notes, I feel like I retain the information better and also am able to draw diagrams and pictures and everything note-taking software aims to emulate easily.
I started using simplenote because someone on reddit mentioned sncli in a thread about cli programs they like. Simplenote lets you use markdown and I think theres a way to do checklists (not how I use it) but other than that its just super basic. Sncli is slightly irritating to setup initially but it works well enough and its good for low power machines.
I thought this was going to be about pens and paper when I read the title; at work I've been using a Midori grid block notebook and TWSBI Eco.
Oh, I wish I could use pen and paper! But I have arthritis, and holding a pen for more than a few minutes is beyond me most days.
Well I don't do large amounts of notes by hand and even without arthritis my hand hurts after too many notes by hand.
Big things I type. At work I'm typically writing 1 page of notes over the course of a day.
I am using crypt.ee for my few notes. That reminds me I should make more notes.
I usually write stuff in my reMarkable, I still find writing down aids my memory more than typing. And it's just a cool device (albeit expensive!)
Usually it makes it's way to Notion in a typed format at some point.
For structured notes, like note-taking in class, Obsidian. For smaller notes, Notepad++ or KWrite, or a paper notepad. Paper writing is sick, zero limitations!
Obsidian is fantastic. It is great for general note taking, pasting images and screenshots, linking between pages etc.
Big fan of Smart Edit Writer for writing (formerly Atomic Scribbler). Have only ever used free tier - no issues. Organizes your writing in hierarchical fashion / trees (like reddit comments). I've found this incredibly useful.
One drawback: the way the files get saved on the backend is weird. If opening within Smart Edit Writer, no issues at all. But the text files that Smart Edit Writer saves on the backend you have no control over naming. Makes things annoying on the rare occasions I just want to open text files rather than open SEW itself.
I use a Kobo Elipsa 2E.