the good old notepad,

That’s my preference.

Is it like complicated things or simple ones?

It is both. I take very detailed and heavily linked notes (through my own PKMS based on index cards) and I also use notebooks for quick notes on the go notes. Have been doing so for years. BTW, there is a community related to Note-taking/Personal Knowledge Management: !pkms@lemmy.blahaj.zone

I don’t use it to remember things (well, yes it helps with that too, but it’s not the main purpose) I use it to help me think and create new ideas/associations between existing ideas, infos, whatever.

More info on ‘my’ note-taking system (it’s not mine by any mean): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

Edit: published too early an unfinished post, sorry ;)

Notepad++

I keep one long “logfile” and sometimes a few extra files per special topic.

QOwnNotes

Orgzly is my favourite note app. I use that and sync to a folder which I can then sync with Syncthing to my desktop and have versioning there.

At work I use OneNote and digital sticky notes. Outside of work I use Samsung Notes, or pen and paper

On my phone: Miminote. Just been using it for years now. It’s pretty basic but I just put, like, grocery lists and reminders in there.

Other: I have a cheap dollar store notebook that I just use for random craft ideas that I’ll likely never get around to. I also try to keep W.I.P notes in there, like “You were using # size needle, ### yarn, on ### row.”

OneNote for work. Usually for meeting notes to help me transfer to Action items in to the task management software. I also use it to keep a record of my conversations with team members.

I also use it as a temporary location for information while performing work. I later transfer those into the details section of the task management software.

Apple Notes for personal. App is also installed on my personal laptop. It’s simple to share Notes with my partner.

I use https://silverbullet.md/ have been loving it so far

I hand write them first and then organize important stuff in Obsidian for future reference. Writing stuff down helps me remember it. I carry a pocket notebook and use one page for a weekly todo list and the other for general notes.

I use a word counter as a more useful makeshift.

Amplenote, never looking back. Organizing notes with tags, combined with proper rich text formatting and attachments is what makes it perfect system for me. I’m using free plan, considering subscribing in future just to support the app, but I don’t need any of the paid features atm.

More important. Than taking notes is what are you gonna do with them. This conditions how, where, and with what you take notes.

If you’re never gonna look at them again and just generally use it to think, brainstorm, or remember things better. Then it doesn’t matter where, just use whatever is immediately available to you.

If it needs to be later referenced, shared, archived or processed into finished products for personal projects or work, there are several options. Note taking apps, text editing software, plugins for different editors. Each will do things different and will link differently to different work pipelines.

My current pipeline is notes either on the phone or on a notepad. Then I clean and process said notes on OneNote (don’t judge, work pays for it and it is the only one available). Where they are more structured, tagged, detailed, hyperlinked or whatever else it takes. That’s where I also take notes for meetings or training and study sessions.

Finally, I use those notes for writing reports, minutes, and presentations. Which are then sent to the actual institutional archive.

Me and all my colleagues erase old notes once they’re no longer relevant for data protection, so we don’t use the archive features of ONote. But the encrypted sharing and sync is very useful for collaboration and to save your work in case of hardware failure.

On my personal life I have permanent places of data storage, and take notes with whatever I happen to have at hand. Samsung notes, paper, notepads, whatever. Data always end up either being deleted or sent to a more permanent place. Just like with cameras, the best tool is the one you have at hand when you need it.

I have a work phone and a personal phone. If I’m in the field I will text work related things to my work phone. Sometimes I’ll take a picture of things I need to remember to do instead of taking a note, these can end up in either phone. I have a notepad at my desk that I’ll take notes on if I’m at my desk. If I’m walking into a meeting I’ll take blank sheets of printer paper and write on those, sometimes I’ll take a picture of these notes after the meeting. I have a work account with one note that I use sometimes and a personal account on obsidian that I use mostly for taking notes on whatever I’m reading or ideas for projects. At the end of every week I’ll look through all my pictures, notes, pictures of notes, etc. and make a list of stuff I need to do next week.

It’s a mess.

emacs orgmode (+ mobile app) is incredibly powerful if you want something local and extensible.

The capabilities are insane, it can do TODO’s, scheduling, time-tracking, filtered agendas y lots more.

I have it synced with my iphone (the app i use is “beorg”, but on android a popular one is “orgzly”) and it kinda blows my mind

Barrier of entry for emacs is a bit high sadly

Standard Notes. It’s like Google Keep but without Google.

If I need to remember something I either take a note or add it to my calendar. Otherwise I wont.