Digital notes have become the storeroom for everything that has no specific place: ideas, meeting notes, instructions for setting up the printer, recipes, lists of books to read, booking codes. The risk is that they turn into another messy drawer, where information goes in easily but comes out with difficulty. Choosing the tool with some criteria and adopting a few organizing rules makes the difference between a useful archive and a pile of forgotten texts.
Criteria for choosing an app
There are countless note apps, and they change often. Rather than recommending one, it is better to assess a few features that remain important over time.
| Criterion | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Data format | if notes are text or Markdown files, you can open them with any program even ten years from now |
| Export | if the format is proprietary, check that everything can be exported completely |
| Sync | it must work reliably on every device you use |
| Offline use | notes are needed where there is no connection too |
| Search | it should find words in the text, and ideally in PDFs and images as well |
| Encryption | important if you note down personal or confidential work information |
The criterion I underestimate least is portability. Apps are born, change their pricing model and sometimes shut down. If one day you have to switch tools, being able to take your notes away without losing structure and attachments is essential.
Open formats: the case of Markdown
Many modern apps save notes as plain Markdown files in a folder on your computer. The advantage is huge: notes are files like any other, they go into the backup with everything else, they can be synced with any service and read with any text editor. Markdown adds minimal formatting, such as headings, lists and bold, without tying you to a program.
Apps with a proprietary format can offer richer features, such as databases, drawings or real-time collaboration. There is no absolutely right choice, but it is good to know what you are trading.
Folders, tags or both
There are two main approaches to organizing notes:
- Folders: each note lives in one place. Simple and intuitive, it works well with a few broad categories.
- Tags: each note can have several labels. Flexible, but it risks producing dozens of tags used only once.
A practical compromise is to use a few broad folders, such as Work, Personal, Reference and Archive, and a few cross-cutting tags for states or types, such as #to-review, #recipe, #procedure. Before creating a new tag, ask yourself whether you will use it for at least five notes.
Naming notes
Notes titled «Untitled note» or «New note» are impossible to find by scrolling. A good title describes the content so that you can recognize it a year from now: «Office printer setup – driver and IP», «Building meeting 2025-05-12», «Christmas present ideas». For notes tied to a specific day, a YYYY-MM-DD date at the start of the title helps sorting.
Templates for recurring notes
If you often write notes of the same kind, a template saves time and keeps notes consistent. A template for meeting notes could be:
# Meeting: [topic] – YYYY-MM-DD
Attendees:
Decisions:
Tasks (who, what, by when):
Open issues:
Most apps support templates directly, or you can simply keep a note to duplicate.
Reference notes and working notes
A useful distinction concerns how long notes live. Reference notes contain stable information you will consult several times: procedures, instructions, contact lists. They deserve care, a clear title and updating when things change. Working notes, such as a draft or a quick jotting, are short-lived: when they are no longer needed, archive or delete them.
What not to put in notes
Notes are often synced to external servers and sometimes shared. They are not the place for passwords, recovery codes or full banking details: that is what a password manager is for, encrypting and protecting them specifically. If the app offers notes encrypted with a separate password, that may be acceptable for sensitive personal information, but not for your main credentials.
In short
- Choose the app by weighing format, export, sync, search and encryption.
- Prefer open formats such as Markdown when portability matters to you.
- Use a few broad folders and a few cross-cutting tags.
- Give descriptive titles and use templates for recurring notes.
- Keep passwords and codes in the password manager, not in notes.
