Rather than a fully featured notes or writing tool, I now have a bunch of plain text files and a lot of them. The files themselves are simple, can be edited on any system, and are future-proof.

Interesting article, I’m also trying to get away from such closed systems, but I don’t directly have a note-taking system to start with. The option to add all your text notes into a git repository is a nice added benefit for the system shown here as well.

My biggest issue is that when I use a text-only system I’m limited to text, and I am a more a structurally oriented person aka mind maps and drawings, the best method for me would be a combination out of text files and diagrams.

I’m currently using OmniGraffle a lot as this allows me to organize my text and diagrams on a big endless canvas, and this really helps me with sorting my thoughts. Be this my notes when debugging a bug in a complicated piece of software or starting to understand the structure of code I’m working on or the research I do for my projects. OmniGraffle is closed software, but at least it offers a massive amount of export options, and it is not new on the market – and I really like it – so, for the time being, I’m willing to make some concessions on this end.

⤑ The Plain Text Life.