Half a year ago I stumbled upon two notetaking tools of which one improved my life’s quality, so I thought I share my experience with the community. I’m not sponsored by either of these projects.

Both of these tools are powerful extendable markdown editors with a daily journal, calender function, TODO list and a knowledge base similar to a Wiki. Every page or block can be crosslinked, referenced or embedded. That way, I can keep an overview over my daily tasks with all necessary information directly accessible.

The one tool I use daily now, is Logseq. I synchronize my notes among all my devices via git. Works great under Linux, but I needed to install termux on Android. They are working on a sync service for logseq, which should make it more interesting for most users. There is one caveat though: It’s not on Google’s PlayStore, nor on f-droid.

The other similar tool, which I can recommend because it is more easily available, is Obsidian. The company also offers a sync service for premium users. I found one missing feature which is more a niche, but still a bummer: Code blocks cannot be indented.

What do you think? Do you use similar - maybe even better - note taking tools?

  • 667
    2•1 year ago

    Nice, there’s no markdown in oN but it does standard text formatting as expected. I use oN for Mac which is particularly limited in its featureset, but it’s what I’ve got.

    I’m going to check out the note-taking systems you’ve mentioned and Obsidian; I appreciate it!

    • @dustagon
      1•1 year ago

      Dunno if you checked out Obsidian yet, but outside of the features already mentioned, I really like the UI and plugins. You can open multiple notes at once in the same window and organize them how you need which makes referencing multiple notes/topics really easy.

      Obsidian is a much better tool for connecting ideas and organizing thoughts, imo. I feel OneNote is a bit easier for anyone familiar with Microsoft products and looking for more of a bulletin board (which Obsidian can do with plugins). But even daily notes and idea dumps feel more productive with Obsidian since it’s so much easier to organize everything.

      Just my opinions. Hope that helps!

      • 667
        1•1 year ago

        It so happens that I’m now elbows deep in Obsidian and Zettelkasten. I’ve long mulled setting up a personal wiki site so I can take my notes, but didn’t like how accessible to the world they would be. I had no idea a markdown editor like Obsidian existed.

        The big hurdle I’m personally facing is the mental shift of going from linear notes (Cornell NTS in OneNote) to Zettels.

        I’m so acquainted to having my notes lay before me on a single page that I’m not quite sure yet how to use the Zettelkasten for my academic studies. I’m test driving it right now with a couple of books I’m reading.

        Definitely in love with wiki-style linking and tags. So much easier to find info I’ve designated as related.