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Document-centered note-taking applications

For me to explain what my ideal second-brain app would look like, I must first explain how it's fundamentally different from other note-taking applications. To start, what do I mean by "document"? and why do I hate them? I feel that a document forces an ideology to the writer, that at its base is just a skeuomorphic analogy of how (typically) letter-sized pieces of paper behave. You physically store them in a folder, name them, give them table of contents and so on. I believe that the best note-taking structures should avoid this one for better indexation.

Now, I'll talk briefly about a few popular applications, each one will hopefully illustrate my unconformities, not with the product itself, but to using it for second-brain note-taking systems. Wait, what do you mean a "second-brain"? A system where a person can store and index knowledge, information, logs, notes, tasks, or ideas. For a second-brain to be functional, the indexing must made focused on optimizing the time it takes to look something up. While avoiding the creation of duplicate data, of course.

Google Docs

I firmly believe that this is the best commercial word processor ever made, if you're planning on creating an individual document with a specific purpose. The activity most similar to note-taking that I could comfortably do with Google Docs is writing minutes during meetings. If the length, quantity, and security allows it, you could even have all your minutes inside a single document, divided by project and with the date as a subheading.

But how do you connect information that's written inside a document? Its complicated to do connect sections of the same document and almost impossible if the connection is between two different files. It feels like if the application created a ghost of a traditional paper document. The feature of having a table of content is neat enough, having the first few pages as a working index that automatically scrolls you to a certain heading that introduces a section of the document.

Multi-application workflows

This is where I believe most note-taking productivity obsessed goblins live. They usually have complex systems of proprietary data structures. I've seen people show off their interconnected web of application with sentences like “I use Notion for planning, Pocket for bookmarks, Quizlet for vocab drills, Evernote for Web Clipping, Google Drive for collaboration and OneNote for freeform notes and diagrams”. To me, all of this feels like total madness. These applications will undoubtedly change, break, maybe even get closed down, deprecated or discontinued.

In workflows like this you keep on depending in more and more proprietary software to keep them connected, likely paying more and more for them. This kinds of "stacks" feel like building my own cage where I will be unable to escape from in the future.

But I don't believe this problems are caused by the application themselves, or even the workflow. The step I took to avoid this kinds of dynamics was to realize that many of these things don't need to be deeply connected.

Apple Notes

Obsidian