I’d kind of forgotten how I used OneNote for a few years as my note-taking app1Skip to the last paragraph to find out why I am randomly discussing OneNote. It’s multiplatform–basically everything but Linux2Unless you use the web version–and while the UI is a bit odd, it makes sense once you realize it apes real world use: a series of notebooks (sections), each with their own pages (sets of notes).
Unlike something like Obsidian (which I use currently) it’s all in a proprietary format and your notes are saved to a folder somewhere on OneDrive, so exporting your notes to another program is not exactly a straightforward task (I only see an option to export pages as PDFs). Which also explains why none of my OneNote notes are in Obsidian.
On the plus side, this is a full WYSIWYG app, so you can easily add audio, video, images and other files, mess around with different fonts and styles and basically go crazy doing things that are impossible in a plain text file. That has definite appeal to a visually-minded dope like me.
I’m…somewhat tempted to try it again. I shouldn’t. Having text-only notes keeps me focused or sane or something. I don’t need to be able to dictate my notes using a microphone.
Do I3No, I do not. Yet I want to do so now. Badly. I am bad and should feel bad.?
Look, I’m sticking to Obsidian and there’s nothing I can do to convince me otherwise. Probably almost for sure.
DISCLAIMER: Technically, I am talking about personal knowledge management (PKM) tools, which act like your own little personal Wikipedias, and not just plain note-taking apps. My main purpose for using a PKM is note-taking, though, and I make the rules here! Am I using a hammer instead of a screwdriver? Probably. Read on, anyway!
I love fiddling around with new stuff. It’s why I have three mice sitting on my desk (computer mice, not the living kind) and a bunch more stored away. It’s why I have more keyboards than I could ever need in five lifetimes, stuffed into drawers and scattered about my place.
And it’s why I’m a sucker for a shiny piece of new software, which leads to this post’s topic: note-taking apps.
Even if you have absolutely no interesting in note-taking apps, you probably still have one, anyway, whether it’s Notepad on Windows, the Notes app on Macs, or some built-in app on your iPhone (Notes again) or Android device. They are ubiquitous. And now, with the whole second brain1Go ahead, try looking up what a “second brain” is. Your actual brain will explode. thing being the new hotness, note-taking apps have started popping up like bunnies. Note-taking bunnies.
I noticed that after expressing some interest in technology on Medium (via my preferences), it started offering me stories on note-taking apps. I believe there are roughly a trillion of these articles on Medium, which nearly matches the number of note-taking apps themselves.
I thought to myself, “Self, you need to be more organized, somehow. For some reason. You need a note-taking app that will let you consolidate all your notes in one place, so you never need to figure out where your notes are. This future of unparalleled organization will be awesome.”
It’s a good theory. My notes were previously scattered all over. I used:
Paper. Actual paper, like cave people used to do
Drafts. An app on my iPhone that can send to other apps.
OneNote. I kind of stopped using it a few years ago and I’m not sure why.
Microsoft Word. Because I had it, so why not?
Apple’s Notes app on various Apple platforms. Because it’s there.
iA Writer. Not really built for notes, but…
Ulysses. See above, plus a subscription. Ew.
There’s more I’m forgetting, and this was all before the current explosion of note-taking apps. Since then I’ve tried:
Craft
Notion
Obsidian
And contemplated a million others, while absolutely only positively ruling out a few, like Evernote, usually due to what I deem excessive pricing.
For a time I thought I had settled on Obsidian. It supports markdown, is free, can work between Mac, PC and (somewhat) with iOS (it really wants you to use iCloud for your “vault”). On (virtual) paper, it provides everything I’d need in a note-taking app and also has all the second brain stuff, like backlinks and things.
I feel like I’m grossly under-utilizing it by not making proper use of links (back, forward or any other direction), tags and other means of keeping things organized. I mean, look at this guy wax poetic about how useful Obsidian is. It makes me want to install it again right now!
While I’m clearly not tapping into Obsidian’s potential, I am big on bullet lists, because I love lists. So now, as I think about whether to stick with Obsidian or not, I wonder: Why do I take notes? The answer is in a list. Right below!
Track ideas. These can be ideas for:
stories
blog posts
game design
comics
drawings
General reminders (I have moved these to actual to-do apps)
WIP stuff on my newsletter (five issues so far, published very intermittently)
Book and movie reviews (that get posted to my blog, Goodreads or elsewhere)
Random tips and tricks, usually associated with tech
Everything that doesn’t fit into the above
And Obsidian has worked reasonably well here. I’ve added plugins to expand on what it can do. Look how organized everything appears to be (I have redacted a few items, but it’s nothing scandalous, like panda porn or something, just stuff regarding the condo or other personal yet banal items):
And yet I feel like:
I am underutilizing Obsidian to the point where I probably could just use Notepad, for all the difference it would make
Maybe I don’t have the kind of personality to connect the dots, or in this case, the notes?
Maybe I actually don’t have a compelling reason to use backlinks and I’m overthinking things, as is my way
But it all seems so useful. There are so many articles! I want to do more! Yet I am not feeling there is a yawning chasm in my life because I have only clicked a backlink maybe once in Obsidian, and that was just to see if it worked (it did).
Anyway, have a look, there’s plenty to choose from!
It’s a hybrid model that is related to, but not the same as the dreaded subscription model. Even more now than before, we are seeing signs of subscription fatigue from users–something that must be weighing on the minds of Apple’s executives as they get ready to unveil multiple new subscription services at their event tomorrow. McCormack cites the example of Ulysses, pointing out how people have gleefully torpedoed the average rating for the app by one-starring it solely for switching to a subscription model.
And I think that’s valid. It is and should be a dealbreaker. Ulysses’s devs may go on about how it only costs the equivalent of a Starbucks coffee per month, but their subscription doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s one of many apps to now demand a subscription simply to use it. The subscriptions add up and eventually the user will say, “No more” and may even start cutting back. In the case of Ulysses, there are plenty of other writing apps out there that do not charge a subscription fee for use. (Note: As I’ve also reported, I finally gave in and reluctantly subscribed to Ulysses, but only after holding out for 18 months. And my loyalty will only last until I find a better non-subscription writing app.)
This leads into what Agenda is doing differently, and it’s an approach I really like, and hope that other developers will adopt it (maybe some have–it’s been over a year since the blog post was written).
Agenda is free to use–there are no ads, no up-front costs, no subscription. There are, however, a set of premium features that require in-app purchase. This purchase gives you permanent access to the premium features, along with any added over the next 12 months. You can keep using this version of Agenda forever and never pay again. If a new premium feature or set of features comes out after the 12 months has lapsed, you make the same in-app purchase and get those features and any others added for another 12 months, again keeping them permanently.
My only quibble is the actual price–$35 is not a ton of money, but it does seem expensive for a note-taking app. Also, the Mac and iOS versions must be purchased separately.
Still, I think this is an excellent way to avoid subscriptions, while still allowing for an ongoing stream of revenue for the developers, and I’d like to see it adopted more widely.
Maybe if Ulysses switched over to this model they would finally rid themselves of the plague of the 1-star reviews.
