the good old notepad,

That’s my preference.

Is it like complicated things or simple ones?

It is both. I take very detailed and heavily linked notes (through my own PKMS based on index cards) and I also use notebooks for quick notes on the go notes. Have been doing so for years. BTW, there is a community related to Note-taking/Personal Knowledge Management: [email protected]

I don’t use it to remember things (well, yes it helps with that too, but it’s not the main purpose) I use it to help me think and create new ideas/associations between existing ideas, infos, whatever.

More info on ‘my’ note-taking system (it’s not mine by any mean): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

Edit: published too early an unfinished post, sorry ;)

At work I use OneNote and digital sticky notes. Outside of work I use Samsung Notes, or pen and paper

Orgzly is my favourite note app. I use that and sync to a folder which I can then sync with Syncthing to my desktop and have versioning there.

More important. Than taking notes is what are you gonna do with them. This conditions how, where, and with what you take notes.

If you’re never gonna look at them again and just generally use it to think, brainstorm, or remember things better. Then it doesn’t matter where, just use whatever is immediately available to you.

If it needs to be later referenced, shared, archived or processed into finished products for personal projects or work, there are several options. Note taking apps, text editing software, plugins for different editors. Each will do things different and will link differently to different work pipelines.

My current pipeline is notes either on the phone or on a notepad. Then I clean and process said notes on OneNote (don’t judge, work pays for it and it is the only one available). Where they are more structured, tagged, detailed, hyperlinked or whatever else it takes. That’s where I also take notes for meetings or training and study sessions.

Finally, I use those notes for writing reports, minutes, and presentations. Which are then sent to the actual institutional archive.

Me and all my colleagues erase old notes once they’re no longer relevant for data protection, so we don’t use the archive features of ONote. But the encrypted sharing and sync is very useful for collaboration and to save your work in case of hardware failure.

On my personal life I have permanent places of data storage, and take notes with whatever I happen to have at hand. Samsung notes, paper, notepads, whatever. Data always end up either being deleted or sent to a more permanent place. Just like with cameras, the best tool is the one you have at hand when you need it.

I use https://silverbullet.md/ have been loving it so far

Couple different kinds of notes, but I think this covers most of my use cases

I use google keep for small reminders, things I want to look up later, grocery lists to share with my wife, etc.

I keep a couple field notes notebooks around in my car and bag for things I want to make a physical note of, especially things I need to sketch out (I am no artist by any stretch of the imagination but I’m a capable DIYer and I sometimes need to sketch out the thing I’m building/fixing) while I’m out and about before I forget about them. I like the size of them, and the dot grid lends itself well to the kind of notes and sketches I use them for.

I also have some sketches of the rooms in my house in those books, list of some furniture dimensions, so when I’m out shopping with my wife and she asks “do you think this will fit in our dining room?” I can tell her definitively yes or no.

It also has a list of the bulbs, tires, wiper blades, air filters, etc. that our cars use, so I can reference them quickly while out shopping, it’s quicker to just flip to the back page of my little notebook than to try to look it up on my phone from the aisle at AutoZone or Walmart.

I also have a rite in the rain notebook I keep with my tools, it’s fairly rugged and waterproof, mostly ends up getting used for scribbling down a list of stuff I need to get from the hardware store in the middle of a project. Went with that one because I’m pretty likely to be using it when I’m wet or dirty, outside in the mud, under a leaking sink, etc. while I’m halfway through a project.

I keep another one of those with my camping supplies.

I have a pad of graph paper at my workbench, I like it for sketching things out, same as I like the dot grid in the field notes books, but this one doesn’t have to travel around with me or pull double duty for written notes, so I could go bigger and cheaper

We also did our kitchen cabinets in blackboard paint, so my wife and I can leave notes to each other on there, mostly reminders to empty the dishwasher and such.

Obsidian

emacs orgmode (+ mobile app) is incredibly powerful if you want something local and extensible.

The capabilities are insane, it can do TODO’s, scheduling, time-tracking, filtered agendas y lots more.

I have it synced with my iphone (the app i use is “beorg”, but on android a popular one is “orgzly”) and it kinda blows my mind

Barrier of entry for emacs is a bit high sadly

I have a work phone and a personal phone. If I’m in the field I will text work related things to my work phone. Sometimes I’ll take a picture of things I need to remember to do instead of taking a note, these can end up in either phone. I have a notepad at my desk that I’ll take notes on if I’m at my desk. If I’m walking into a meeting I’ll take blank sheets of printer paper and write on those, sometimes I’ll take a picture of these notes after the meeting. I have a work account with one note that I use sometimes and a personal account on obsidian that I use mostly for taking notes on whatever I’m reading or ideas for projects. At the end of every week I’ll look through all my pictures, notes, pictures of notes, etc. and make a list of stuff I need to do next week.

It’s a mess.

Google Keep

• | [Subject]

• | [important parts about the subject] | • [elaborate on important parts] | ex [example text of the subject

With the | being the boarder of the notebook paper and the bulk of the text being some form of shorthand that reminds me of the information. Example:

• Lemmy

• social network
• user name anonymous
• has mods • users complain about mods • flying squid? •probably humans
• lots of memes • *beans" • don’t use 🙂
• hates reddit

QOwnNotes

I recently got a tablet with pen support and have this same question. I’m specifically looking for something that’s on Android and Windows/web. So far, I’ve been using OneNote but I wish it had standard folders instead of notebooks and pages.

Telegram saved messages. It’s the only way I for sure know I won’t forget about them…

I keep envelopes from mail I received and write notes on the empty side. On the rare occasion where I want to actually retain the note, I retype it into one of several txt documents I have open in my Notepad++.