The Best Tools for Capturing Different Types of Notes
From analog to digital notebooks — Find the best note-taking tool for you.
If you were to see my office, you’d be greeted by a pile of notebooks on my desk. And that would only represent what’s visible — I have another stash of virtual notebooks on my computer.
But my notebook collection isn’t random. Each notebook has a very singular purpose. And while a dream might be to have One Notebook to Rule Them All, I’ve found that it’s better to give each notebook a specific purpose. Especially web-based tools (think Evernote or Notion) that have specific features: I’ve concluded that by using different products, I can take advantage of what they offer without confining myself to a product that doesn’t really work for a particular type of note.
If you feel like your note-taking is all over the place — and I’ve been there — it’s helpful to put your notes into different categories. Then find the best fit for note-taking depending on the type of notes, also considering how you need to reference those notes in the future.
Daily Notes/Habits
I’m in the camp of people who likes to write down what I have going on in my life. During my years of teenage angst, I would fill journal upon journal with my Thoughts about school, my latest crush, or friend drama.
Early in my career, I stopped writing in a journal and I regret that now. I spent several years traveling to small towns, a requirement of my job as a software implementation specialist. The places I visited, the food I ate, the travel mishaps… they’re mostly lost except for the occasional fleeting memory.
Then many years, I read Austin Kleon’s post about keeping a logbook: a simple list of the day’s events. No narrative. No prose. Just a list. He writes:
Keeping a simple list of who/what/where means I write down events that seem mundane at the time, but later on help paint a better portrait of the day, or even become more significant over time. By “sticking to the facts” I don’t pre-judge what was important or what wasn’t, I just write it down.
So I copied his approach (and even the notebook he uses!). I have a Moleskine Daily Planner and each morning, I write out the events of the prior day. I have a series of symbols I use at the top of the page so that if I’m flipping back through, I can find related activities.
But there are times when I want to flesh out my feelings about something that’s happened in my life. For this, I use OneNote (Evernote or Notion would also work, but I’ve been using OneNote for a long time and have no reason to switch).
Why use a digital notebook for this purpose? For one thing, I can type much faster than I can write. (Not gonna lie — usually, these entries are tied to a lot of emotions, so typing quickly helps). I can search if I need to. And I can access OneNote from anywhere, including my phone.
I also use a Habit Tracker. While not exactly a notebook, it’s a way to keep track of my daily habits. Mine is a physical notebook, where I write down my daily habits and then check them off when I accomplish them, but many apps have similar functions. My habits include things like “writing in my Daily Planner” (✅) and “exercise” (still working on that one…)
By keeping the habit tracker separate from my Daily Planner, I can give myself a quick, visual “hurrah!” when I maintain a habit over days/weeks/months.
Anna Burgess Yang
Meeting Notes
When my son started middle school, he eschewed the assignment notebook. He thought that he could keep track of everything in his head. The end of the first quarter arrived, and it turned out that was not the case… he had a lot of missing assignments.
He’s a smart kiddo, and I could tell he was embarrassed after meeting with his teachers. On the drive home, I told him that everyone has to write things down. No one can remember everything that needs to get done. I told him that this only gets harder as an adult with demands from a job, kids, and life… so he’ll be helping himself by developing a good system now.
I’m an avid note-taker and have been for years. I would diligently sit with my spiral notebook during meetings, taking notes. My handwriting is atrocious, and often the notes were nonsensical later, but it helped me commit information to memory.
Then I discovered Rocket Notebook, which combined the analog note-taking I love, but then could sync my notes to cloud storage (like Google Drive). Better yet, the reusable notebook made me feel better about the environmental impacts of my voracious note-taking.
Then in 2021, I embarked on a new career, pivoting from fintech into content marketing and journalism. Through this change, I discovered the power of AI transcription.
I’d done interviewing and recorded meetings before and then found myself combing back through my notes or listening to sections of an interview and typing out the word-for-word responses. I had no idea that there were transcription services that could either transcribe in real-time (like Otter.ai) or transcribe a recording after the fact (Rev, Temi, and others).
The discovery of these tools has been a game-changer for my note-taking. I can focus more on the conversation at hand and less on my notes. After reading the transcript, I simply add a few comments or pull out the important parts.
Research Notes
If you’re like me, you probably consume information in a lot of places. Online journals, news outlets, social media, emails… And, if you’re like me, you probably often see things as you scroll through your feed but don’t have time to read at the moment.
For a long time, I was diligent about bookmarking. I had bookmarks on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. I’d email myself articles to read later. Then once a week, I would comb through my bookmarks and “catch up” on everything I thought had looked interesting.
This worked, but I felt like information was all over the place. I had to visit several sites to get through my weekly reading list.
Then I discovered Pocket, a little app to replace my bookmarking madness. Instead of saving to that site’s bookmarks, I save to Pocket. It works on my phone and in a browser, creating a single reading list for me.
That solved one problem, but the larger issue has always been creating a knowledge base for myself. Sure, I can use a web clipper and save an article to something like Evernote or OneNote. I can organize into notebooks or use tags, but this method has some shortcomings in cross-referencing related ideas.
Recently, I started using Roam Research (which has a competitor product, Obsidian). I can honestly say it’s not like anything I’ve ever used… and I love it. The learning curve is a bit steep, so I watched several YouTube videos that explained the basics.
Instead of an organized notebook, Roam is more like creating your own Wikipedia. Wikipedia has no “folder structure” in which topics are organized — it has pages, with linked pages to related topics. Conceptually, Roam is similar, except that a lot of the linking happens automagically. If I create a page called “The Great Resignation” today, every time I type “The Great Resignation” in the future, the pages will have bi-directional links. I don’t have to think about the organization; I just type.
I’ve been storing everything in Roam, including quotes from books I read, my daily Wordle scores, and random thoughts that come into my head. I can just see the power of having unstructured-yet-connected ideas.
Final Thoughts
For anyone, the ability to capture and retrieve ideas is an immensely useful skill. And in this information age, we can quickly become overwhelmed.
By keeping my uses of different tools very distinct, I’ve made peace with the fact that I don’t have a “single” note-taking system. I use the tool that works best for that purpose. Spending the time to find what worked best helped me move beyond a pile of scribbled thoughts.
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