How I Take Notes

Tools I Use Regularly

  • Pen and paper
    • For capturing quick notes, especially anything that requires diagramming, nothing beats a pen and paper The obvious problem is that it’s difficult to search through pen and paper notes (if only we had cmd-F/ctrl-F for everyday life).
  • Apple Notes app
    • I use this exclusively to quickly write a note/thought but I don’t keep anything here long-term.
  • Markdown files stores in Git repos
    • Especially for shared team documentation
    • Notes I want to make publicly availably (lke this digital garden!)
    • Anything where I see versioning being valuable (eg seeing how a note changes over time)
  • Notekeeper
    • Another quick way to take one-off notes from the command line.
  • Google Keep
    • My main way of taking notes on my phone and also sharing them with family members.

At Work

  • Confluence (Exclusively for work)

Experimental

Tools I am experimenting with.

  • Notion
  • Obsidian

Semi-Retired

I haven’t fully given up on these tools yes, but they are not an active part of my note-taking regiment.

  • Bullet Journal
    • I used to be an avid Bullet Journaler in my college years, but I don’t find that it maps well to a professional working environment when you need to share calendar events and/or notes with colleagues.

Retired

Things I used to use but don’t any more.