til / Selecting a note-taking app

I’ve been changing note-taking apps often. Too often. It’s full on Shiny object syndrome. Choose one and stick with it for as long as possible.¹ The cost of switching is big and the more you invest in your notes, the more value you’ll get from them.²

I love the idea of storing notes and having ideas from them later on. However, I get bogged down by constantly fiddling with settings and themes. So, I want something with good defaults and I should not add more plugins than what is absolutely necessary. Always defer to defaults. If possible, even turn off defaults that aren’t used. I also tend to overdo styling of my notes. I want them to “look nice”. Does it really matter? The contents are what’s important and that the note gets written. Needing a specific format adds a hurdle to the act of writing.

I’ve also looked into systems for how to store notes, like Tiago Forte’s PARA system. But I don’t know if it actually helps me. Similar to styling above, it currently feels like another hurdle to me. The need to conform to a structure. Maybe if I have thousands of notes, but I never get there because of the constant switching.

Needs #

• Simple and fast
• Search
• Local files
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting as I often write about things regarding development
• Vim motions

Nice to haves #

• Open source
• Mobile app
• Backlinks
• Markdown
• Tags
• Longform writing

Where I’m at #

I’ve tried a lot of applications. Roam, Logseq, Evernote, Notion, Tana, Apple Notes. The one that I stuck with the longest, and came back to multiple times, was Obsidian. It met all of my requirements, but I never got it feeling quite like mine.

Over the years, I’ve heard mentions of some magical “Org Mode” floating around. As an avid Neovim user for years, I had written off ever using Emacs. It felt like a betrayal. But, curiousity got me. I decided to dip my toes using nvim-orgmode. It instantly piqued my interest, but felt limited in Neovim. After some trial and error I got Doom Emacs working, but could quickly become productive since a lot comes built-in and I can still use my trusted vim motions.

Using Emacs is opposed to previous arguments that you shouldn’t fiddle around with your setup. There’s a lot of fiddling in Emacs. But the idea of making the setup truly mine in something I very much enjoy using speaks to me. Especially when the experience truly is magical.