Use plain text files for note-taking
note
Tools change all the time. In 2012 every productivity guru was using Evernote. In 2023 Notion, Obsidian, Roam are all the hype, and in 10 years it will be something else.
I think of these Notes as a lifelong thinking partner. Proprietary file formats lock you into specific software ecosystems, and cloud-based solutions keep give the data authority to third-party. Files-should-outlive-the-application.
Use plain text files 1 for your notes:
- They are universally compatible, and will never become unsupported or deprecated. They worked on a computer 50 years ago, and will probably work on one 50 years from now.
- They are portable. They work on every device.
- You can choose to sync them through any cloud solution along with having them locally.
- You can work with them on any editor that is currently in fashion.
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Markdown, HMTL, Latex, … ↩
Links to this note
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