I am wondering how everyone takes notes? This can be while you're testing or doing some courses or you're just putting down a to-do. Do you have a specific notes taking application you use? Are you more of a pen and paper person (like me), do you use vim or emacs with org-mode?
I am interested in what everyone uses in case there is something better than what I am currently doing.
Thanks!
Top comments (68)
I use Boostnote synced with Google Drive for most code related notes or markdown documents.
Recently I got my first fountain pen (a Pilot Metropolitan) so I've been doing a lot more paper notes in a Moleskine notebook. I will probably upgrade to a better notebook when this one's done, such as a Rhodia, Clairefontaine or Leuchtturm.
The big sell for fountain pens is that it makes writing a lot more fun!
I currently use a fountain pen with a Leuchtturm notebook. The best part is that the notebook has an table of contents!
Me too, me too!
I also find that the fountain pen makes my handwriting look better. The nib must not be too narrow, tho.
I usually write stuff with my editor of choice (currently VS Code) in Markdown format. All the notes are saved in Dropbox. Later on, and if needed to distribute, I convert them to PDF/DOCX/HTML/whatever format with
pandocusing custom templates. These converted versions are usually stored in some another service as well (eg. company cloud) for consuming and archiving.I just can't get my mind into specialised note-taking apps when you can write in plain-text and convert to virtually any format to any service. Apps like Evernote have for ages been obsolete for me. However, I can understand there is a certain work involved writing your own conversion scripts and templates before you can take notes in plain-text.
I use pen and paper -- research has shown this helps the brain understand, correlate, and retain information. (Even if my err your notes are unreadable ;) ) I'm a fan of non-textual techniques like Mind Mapping (2D bullet points) and using fonts and arrows and boxes and things. Again, this helps with understanding. Read Sunni Brown's "Doodle Revolution" for tons of ideas!
For little stuff I use Google Keep. On my morning commute I listen to podcasts and often they have great ideas I want to research later. For that, Keep is perfect: always there, distributed, and simple and fun to use.
Enjoy!
For really short notes I'm still using Google Keep, for larger notes like drafts of blog posts I'm using BoostNote.
It's file based and I'm syncing my notes folder via ownCloud, so I'm able to work on multiple machines.
There's also a mobile version, but I haven't used it yet.
BoostNote looks cool. I am checking it out right now...
What would be advantage over free Evernote? Is just about markdown support (that Evernote is lacking) or something else?
Same with Google Keep. There's some feature missing but it work on all my devices and is accessible from everywhere easily.
I'm working through a large number of Coursera courses at the moment, and trying to compile good working notes from them. While I've played with Onenote, Evernote, and BoostNote, I struggled to get good integration between my notes and my code.
I'm finding the best solution is simply to use Jupyter Notebooks (inside a Docker environment) and push to Github. This way my notes and code examples are tightly integrated, and I can hop between my Linuxbox and Macbook with a minimum of fuss and drama.
The main challenge I have is that I'm not aware of any good tools for searching my notes in Jupyter notebooks. If anyone's aware of any tools, I'd love to hear it!
Are your notes from Courses public or you store them in a private GitHub?
All public. You can find them here and here. :)
Field Notes notebook and a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner, in my pocket at all times.
Remarkably, I find that the Field Notes slogan is true: "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." I rarely consult my notes after I write them, and memory written as tactile sticks a lot more than typed notes.
Occasionally I'll use the stock "notes" app but that's really temp storage for the most part, then anything I do with those notes becomes the thing to which I refer back.
Emacs with org-mode was a life changer for me! It's hard to start when you are not familiar with Emacs, but it's awesome when you get it! I already used Evernote, Notational and other apps, but no other app gives me the customization level that org-mode have.
For short notes which I need only locally and for short time I use Vim.
For tech notes I want locally and remotely I use BoostNote.
For all other notes, bookmarks, projects, brain dumps, etc I use Dynalist, which is something like Workflowly, but much better.
Dynalist looks interesting! going to check it out today!
I use Microsoft OneNote and (until recently) a Huion drawing tablet. People definitely have their opinions about MS Office but OneNote has been a great way to keep everything organized, backed up, and paper free. I recently received an iPad Pro as a gift and have now been using the OneNote app with the Apple Pencil to keep up with notes for class. I always hand write my notes so this has been an awesome way to be even more organized and still be able to feel like I'm using a real pen (I just personally never learn or remember well when I type out my notes).
I was using evernote, but whithout having native support for markdown is a mess. So I try different ones and I'm using Quiver happenapps.com/ and it's not in the cloud this one, so you need to provide your dropbox on google drive if you want to sync with other devices.