The Challenge of Digital Note-Taking

I take a lot of notes. If I don't write something down, I'm liable to forget it. Over the years, I've tried everything: OneNote, Evernote, Notion, handwritten notes, Google Docs, Word documents, and plain text files. They all work for the basic task of capturing thoughts, but I've always struggled with a bigger challenge: synthesizing my ideas..

The Complexity Trap

Apps like OneNote, Evernote, and Notion offer powerful features for connecting notes through links, but I found their complexity overwhelming. I'd spend more time managing the system than actually thinking and writing. I needed something as simple as a text file but with the ability to connect ideas.

Learning from Notion

Notion, in particular, is an impressive tool. But its countless features became a distraction, and its cloud-based nature made me increasingly conscious about my data privacy. However, Notion taught me something valuable: the power of Markdown. Those nice formatting shortcuts I loved in Notion? They're all based on Markdown, a simple text-based syntax that can be used anywhere.

The Path to Simplicity

I started experimenting with this idea by creating a basic folder structure in VS Code, using Markdown files. As I got more comfortable with this approach, I discovered Obsidian, and it changed everything.

Finding the Sweet Spot with Obsidian

Obsidian has become my perfect middle ground. It's open source and runs locally (though I keep my vault backed up on OneDrive), combining the simplicity I craved with the connection features I needed. The beauty of Markdown means I never have to think about formatting – I just type a few characters to create headings, bullet points, or links between notes.

A Flexible Organization System

I have a basic folder structure setup, but I do not get too hung up on categorizing my notes. The search function built into Obsidian allows me to search on keywords and that is extremely easy to find notes I am looking for. On the backend the folder structure looks exactly like what you would see in file explorer. And the beauty is that if I don't want to use Obsidian in the future I take those markdown files and I can read them in any markdown code editor. It is completely future proof.

Enhanced Documentation Capabilities

My notes include a lot of process documentation for my day job and my website. Within Markdown you can use code blocks and for me this means I can use mermaid.js and create quick flow charts and diagrams right in my notes. No more fussing with Visio or draw.io. They live together seamlessly.

Looking Forward

The simplicity of Markdown has transformed my note-taking workflow, dramatically increasing my productivity. As my collection of connected, comprehensive notes continues to grow, I'm discovering new ways to leverage this system. I look forward to sharing more specific techniques and lessons learned with all of you in future posts.