Notes on Note-taking

Yesterday I had the privilege of being a guest on Mohammad Najmuzzaman channel on Leher where we discussed note-taking. 

Below are the points I had noted down before the conversation. I basically list the software I have tried and what I think about them. 

I mainly talk about: 

• Software I have tried
• Jobs Note-taking does for me
• My Needs
• My Current Stack
• Personal Opinions on Note Taking

Software I have tried.

• Evernote
  • Best in class OCR and web clipper
  • Great ecosystem
  • Product evolution stalled
• Onenote
  • Image to text
  • Free? Won't go away?
• Keep it (Mac + iOS)
  • Evernote alternative (iCloud + non subscription)
  • Good OCR, Ability clip pages as PDFs and web archives
• Apple Notes
  • Free? Quick access
• IA Writer
  • Focus 
  • Markdown
• Notion
  • Nesting, i.e., text in a table/cell can be another page
  • @" and "/" Commands 
• Notability
  • Handwriting + OCR
  • Audio recording - Great for sales meetings
• Endless Paper
  • A new tool, Endless canvas for writing on the iPad. Watch the video on the site 🤯
• Mac Folder
  • Store PDFs and Text in a Folder Search using Spotlight + iCloud Sync
• Google Docs
  • Collaboration, Comments to be more specific
• NV Alt
  • Plain Text 
  • Search As the core interface
• Word
  • 🤦‍♂️
• Physical Paper
  • 👴

A rabbit hole if you want to go though a larger list :https://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors

Jobs Note-taking does for me.

• Store (Secondary Storage)
  • Book highlights
  • Bills and receipts
  • Essential information like family prescriptions and medical history
• Content
  • Blogs, poems, quotes, etc
• Actual notes and work-related stuff
  • notes on this talk
  • Decks, blogs, etc. 
• Scratchpad

My Needs

My search for a note-taking app had the following needs. 

• Evernote import capability ( I have been using it for 10 years now)
• The ability to export data, in case the tool was not "The One."
• The ability to record audio, write with my Apple Pencil, and scanning.
• Tagging and Search with OCR
  • This enabled my Storage job to be done.
• Syncing across my devices (Mac + iPhone + iPad)

I went down many rabbit holes, then sided with simplicity. If I took notes in text, I was never going to be locked down with an App. In an attempt to simplify I decided to give up on 

• Web & Android access to my notes
• Relax my need for having versions history

My Current Stack

• IA Writer for writing & notes
• Keep It as a store of information 
• Notability for Handwriting 
• Playing around with endless paper
• Paper & Pen for real distraction-free work

Personal Opinions

• You don't need to combine task management and note-taking, I think it is actually a net negative. You end up with an average tool that does many things. I am using Things for my task management 
• The links between the notes, unless manually added, add very little value for day to day notes or stored notes.
• Separate Note Taking from Information storage for additional simplification.

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Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash