Thoughts on note taking

5/11/26

I’ve been rethinking how I take notes and manage my tasks and the like over the past few weeks. I think I’ve landed in a place that feels pretty good right now.

A core discovery that’s feeling good to me right now is that I should compose my system out of small functional building blocks. In the past I’ve tried to only use Notion or only use GTD or put everything in Obsidian. This has never really worked for me in practice.

Now I’m just trying to let parts of my system handle just what they’re good at and not overload everything. Currently, that looks like:

• I use Obsidian for note taking.
  • I have a daily note that I dump random thoughts or notes into. I like this for my always available on computer or phone note spot.
  • When I have a larger structured thought or note I will create a new file for it. Or I’ll add it to an existing note. I’m trying to be better about Walk your note tree when adding a new note.
  • I do most of my journaling in Obsidian as well. Sometimes a paper notebook is more appropriate though.
  • I keep my project logs in Obsidian. These are reverse chronological entries where I track tasks and thoughts about the project. I think these still have some pretty big room for improvement. They’re not really the best for me at task management at least.
• I use a small physical notebook for my Day Plan. This contains things I’d like to do today and then I rip the page out each morning without looking at the previous day.
• I’m using a Physical project board right now for trying to keep in my head all the different things I’m working on.
  • This looks like a bunch of index cards on my desk with headings on them.
  • I got a playing card tray and have inserted the index cards in upright so I can easily scan what I’m thinking about.
  • I have found that I almost never am really working on “one project” and this has felt pretty good so far as a reminder system.
  • I’m experimenting with putting sticky notes on these cards as related smaller tasks show up needed to complete the project.
  • I don’t really have a rhyme or reason for when tasks go on the cards vs. in a project log. I think it might kinda of depend on the scope of the project.
• I have been using a digital calendar for a while, but not had much success with it until recently.
  • The big difference for me is switching from the default apple calendar on my phone to the free version of Fantastical. I’m not very interested in the paid version of this app, but I might buy it to support how much I like it.
    • I think any nice calendar app that defaults to an “upcoming events” view instead of a “monthly calendar” view is the main change here that made my calendar actually useful.
  • I have a physical Skylight calendar, which is just an android tablet that is synced to my calendars and displays them next to my desk. This has really helped me pay attention to upcoming events as well.
  • I have a calendar with my own personal events, shared events I do with my partner, her events, and I will sometimes make work events on my calendar if I feel like I actually need to schedule my non-work life around them.

This stuff is all still work in progress, but it’s feeling pretty good right now. I can already tell some of it will need to keep shifting around.

4/28/26

I started using a Day Plan and it works really well at its specific goal.

Its suitability to that role is illuminating how much I was cramming into my daily notes. It was serving a lot of conflicting processes.

I want to explore the idea that there are other simple purpose built tools for other kinds of note taking and organization I should be using.

other places things go:

• things you would actually do are on the day plan
• anything else is a note (i would write it in obsidian)
• things can go on calendar
• things can go on tasks (A friend uses an app called tasks.org)
  • these are like reminders
  • or they have a relationship to time
  • don’t go on calendar because its a smaller level thing
  • this is not well defined to me yet, but interesting to think of other categories
• Spatial organization of projects on a physical table

I want to start a Physical project board.

I’m thinking about how Zulip has easy commands that allow for the manipulation of messages in threads to split topics. I wonder if there are similar sorts of commands and tools I could use for working with my notes.

I’m wondering about other writing and physical note taking formats:

• what’s up with dictation devices?
• What’s up with legal pads?
• Clipboards
• Cork boards
• Detective style notebooks
• memo pads
• Sticky notes
• visual strategies
  • Mind mapping
• White board
• Drawing
• Steno style notebooks