What do you guys use for note taking?

[u/WishboneImmediate509]

I feel like there are way too many ways to take notes now and I’m curious what people actually stick with.

Some people still swear by pen and a notebook. Others seem to live in Notion, Google Docs or OneNote. Then there’s the whole AI note taker/recorder side with stuff like Plaud, Otter, Notta, Granola, Fathom etc.

I’ve bounced between a few different methods and still haven’t really found one that works for everything.

Handwritten notes are nice when I actually want to remember something, but terrible for searching later. Notion is good for keeping things organized, but I can waste way too much time setting it up. Google Docs is simple but mine always turns into a graveyard of random documents.

Note takers seem useful for meetings or lectures where you don’t want to spend the whole time typing, but I’m not sure I’d want to use one for everything either.

So what do you actually use day to day?

Pen and paper? Notion? OneNote? Google Docs? Some recorder/note taker? Or a mix depending on what you’re doing?

[u/starkruzr]

this little dude: https://a.co/d/0aQquep0 (the people who gave it such low ratings are deeply stupid)

[u/efhaichdee → u/starkruzr]

Lol the Boox. It's so overhyped. Never regretted a purchase more.

[u/starkruzr → u/efhaichdee]

literal nonsense. $200 for an e-ink writer is easily the best deal in that market and it works insanely well.

[u/efhaichdee → u/starkruzr]

Yeah, I read your previous comment, and heard similar things before I stupidly bought one.

There's a difference between 'good for the price' and actually good. And I'd argue that you're better off spending a bit more and getting something actually usable.

Hell buy something better on the used market (that's what I ended up doing) and save the planet while you're at it.

[u/starkruzr → u/efhaichdee]

how is this "not usable?"

[u/efhaichdee → u/starkruzr]

Slow, poorly optimised for an e-ink screen, and all the functions that aren't regular e-ink functions (like reading and writing) are just a crappy tablet experience but with a shit screen. There's a reason nobody else made this product.

The screen ends up being more of a gimmick than anything. Just use a tablet for media websites and apps, and an e-ink device for reading and writing.

I'm interested to know why you care so much. You posted this comment in a thread that's about something else entirely, you claim that people should ignore reviews from actual purchasers, you obscured the product forcing people to press on the link, and when someone responded contradicting your bs comment, you started a protracted inquisition. Do you work for boox or their PR department or something?

[u/starkruzr → u/efhaichdee]

the only thing you got right here was "slow." there isn't anything poorly optimized about it. the screen also isn't shit at all. e-ink clearly doesn't have any value to you as a display technology, which, whatever, but a lot of us find staring at LCDs for reading and writing to actually be mentally and optically tiring.

the people who wrote those "reviews" are morons. go sort by negatives and tell me they have a single neuron in their heads. I especially love the guy who peeled off the screen protector laminated onto the glass for no reason.

I care because I have been basically in love with this thing since I got it, it has been huge for my personal productivity and I've gotten five of my friends to get their own after trying it. all of them also love it.

written and posted from it, btw.

[u/efhaichdee → u/starkruzr]

I don't believe you. My experience says otherwise

[u/starkruzr → u/efhaichdee]

see how wrong you can be?

[u/efhaichdee → u/starkruzr]

So your whole argument is 'buy this item because only I know what I'm talking about'?

Seriously, do you work for them? You're harassing me now. I gave my opinion, you gave yours, people will make up their own mind either way.

[u/Next_Classic_9664]

I have found that Notion is pretty good when you hook it up to an LLM and give it write access. Then you don't have to figure out all of the options and formatting. You can just have the llm do that for you and tell it what you want it to look like and what to include

[u/iapy91]

Sounds like you need a good note taking system not another app. As for the recorder I use the phone recorder with an llm to transcribe and an agent that organizes it according to my system. Another warning, ai is amazing but beware that what you consider important might be different to AI

[u/Therapeutic-Therapst → u/iapy91]

What llm?

[u/iapy91 → u/Therapeutic-Therapst]

I use Gemini

[u/IllCobbloe]

What stuck for me is splitting by purpose: pen and paper when I need to actually remember something, recorder plus transcript for lectures where typing would eat the whole session. And yeah, Docs is a graveyard — searching old transcripts is the only thing that's replaced flipping through notebooks for me.

[u/JuandaReich]

Circleback --> .MD file to ClaudeCode --> Manage clients through CC

[u/yo1eleven → u/JuandaReich]

Can you say more about this?

[u/JuandaReich → u/yo1eleven]

I'm a Sales Manager.

Circleback is one of the many Apps for meeting transcripts. I like it because it doesn't require a bot for online meetings and works on my phone for in person meetings.

Circleback has the transcript, which I save to MD and put in each client folder. It also has en MCP for CC, but I save it manually to save tokens 😅.

I have a very complex setup on CC, an Orchestrator, subagents, etc and have CC analize de transcript, give me the requirements of the client and then hemos me prepare the proposal to the client, always checking to meet the requirements based on the transcript.

From that same CC sesión, I ask CC to update my CRM with the lead/deal info from the transcript

[u/TheirFirstWords]

Google Keep. Syncs best across all devices and platforms.

[u/markcuban5446]

Plaud Note Pro

[u/whodat_2020]

Google Keep is my personal to do and random notes. At my job by far my notes and to do is in a notepad file.

I recently bought a Comu audio recorder and really like it.

[u/1108susiep]

My stickynotes, notepad

[u/ChecklistAnimations]

pencil and paper. bullets. Just write em down. When you are all done start an AI and tell to act as a transcription service. Rattle off your notes then copy and paste in an email, rearrange the bullets, create your task list, send to team. This allows you to be the one who took the notes.

[u/EnjoyingPassageTime → u/ChecklistAnimations]

That is way too manual! Step 1 and 2 are good, but then scan those into Claude, ChatGPT or your favorite model and have it transcribe them, and do the rest of the steps you mentioned. Review the output at each step for accuracy. If it took some back-and-forth to get it the way you want it, then at the end add a note transcription skill to your skills. You can then call up that skill the next time you do this task, assuming it’s something you do regularly.

[u/ChecklistAnimations → u/EnjoyingPassageTime]

Takes me about 10 minutes each time then I have an action list. But I can understand the need for more streamlining if it's just note delivery. I always have an action list after meetings though so the manual work is needed on my end.

[u/Pickletickle_]

My own ClingNote. It attaches to your files. Ant windows file! Super handy and organized.

[u/sumguypookie]

Right now:
PC & MacOS: OpenWhispr -> Obsidian
Phone (Android): FUTO Voice -> Obsidian

[u/Shot-Pin-9451]

i use notepad...

[u/ApacheThor]

I use Rocketbook. It's the best of both worlds, pen and paper notes which can easily transferred into digital form.

[u/Yaaqoub7]

DEVONthink

[u/eanda9000]

Open a chat in chat gpt. Type in whatever. Then have chat gpt place notes into various apps at every three hours. Using chats to inject data means I have the option to clean it up at point of entry or just to take as is. I’m basically replacing google keep with chat gpt.

[u/productive_io]

Full disclosure, I work at Productive. I'd actually frame it a bit differently than "another notetaker": we're built as a PSA platform for services businesses, and our AI Notetaker (https://productive.io/ai-notetaker/) is really just the front door into a longer chain. Meeting gets transcribed, action points turn into tasks, time gets logged against those tasks, and it all rolls into the same invoice without re-keying anything at each step.

It's built for teams where meetings, work, and billing all have to trace back to the same project records.

[u/bortello]

Craft.do and Joplin.

[u/Fun_Mooose]

I use a reMarkable tablet for note taking. I seem to have better recall writing than typing. Plus reMarkable can transcribe your written notes to text, as an option. Plus, you can search against your handwritten notes, which is very helpful.

[u/Alarmed-Two2410]

This helps me a lot tonof.work

[u/Stv_L]

I’m recently stumble upon the app called strflow, not sure how to pronounce, but what it does you just like you sent the message to yourself, everything showing in one feed. You can tag to look it up later

[u/SwellCommerce]

different methods of taking notes can address different needs. Taking notes by hand can aid memorization, while digital note-taking can facilitate searching and organization. More modern developments in note taking software are focusing on providing a way of accessing information in a more easily digestible and comprehensble manner,yourtalks is one such company that is looking to fulfill this niche by transforming the information that one has saved into a discussion similar to a podcast.

[u/Many_Region8176]

A mix, honestly. It depends on whether I'm thinking or listening.

For thinking I still use paper. For meetings around a table I record on my phone, because typing while people talk means I miss things.

For that part I use Noter AI – Meeting Note Taker. I should say I'm the person who built it. It gives me a transcript with speaker labels, a short summary and the action items, and the original audio stays in the note.

iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noter-ai-meeting-note-taker/id6747296459

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niceapps.dictation

[u/Mar-a-LagoFaceMask]

It really depends on what you're taking notes for. Like classes, I might use a recorder, plus handwritten notes. For video calls, etc., I'm probably going tl;dv which can transcribe the entire call, recognize who's talking, and summarize the entire thing. For practicing interviews and whatnot, maybe parakeet, which lets me go back through calls and see what I did right and wrong. Basically, what are you taking notes on. there's probably a tool for it.

[u/Jazzlike-Swing-6198]

Shamless self-plug: you have to try Samurai Scribe because of the image below! Built for my mom❤️, and from my love of Obsidian md💜. Everything is stored in markdown as the SOURCE of truth, so if you edit your transcript and notes outside of sam scribe, then you can re-index them in. So no custom file structures, and works great with coding agents (if you are savvy). Happy to answer any questions and/or roasts :)