The search for the best (for me) note-taking app
While I’m relatively new to the world of digital productivity, I’ve sunk an inordinate number of hours into curating my personal app stack. The irony of procrastinating by researching and testing apps that are meant to make me more productive isn’t lost on me, but I’ve since accepted the fact that every app will have its drawbacks.
In my last article, I outlined the features I was looking for in my ideal writing and note-taking app — like cloud capabilities and a clean UI — but most of the apps above check all of those boxes. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this focus on superficial, technical features was the wrong approach. I had failed to consider elements like my writing and note-taking style, organizational methods, and personal knowledge management (PKM) system — elements I was still in the process of refining.
To that end, I’ve appended a couple more features to my ideal app:
✅ Can be adapted for different note-taking methods (e.g. Zettelkasten)
✅ Can support different organizational frameworks (e.g. PARA)
✅ Can support different organizational tools (e.g. tags, folders, interlinking, etc.)
✅ Offers a healthy balance between customization and convention
