These articles are as bad as the notes people they are bagging on.<p>The trouble is that people try to fit the kitchen sink into the note app and that doesn't work. As a programmer, I have specific workflows for each note that I take.<p>Example. I want to try stand-up one day. Each snippet that I think of as a joke, I write down in a note. All snippets go into the same space. Sometimes I think of a snippet which could extend an existing bit (a joke which is larger than a one liner.) Once this page got to a certain length, I didn't even have to think about new snippets anymore. All I would have to do is open this page and they would jump out at me.<p>One approach is that if I feel like I got nothing, I can simply scan the list and find something which hits me. Like, I'll see a line and immediately think of something which could extend it. Or I'll see multiple lines which hit me and I can come up with something which mixes the two together. This may start a new branch of a joke.<p>Apply this to every reason I might add a note. Yes, I have what's basically a trash bin where notes go to die. But anything else is sort of like these jokes, they go into a place where I have a specific way to use them. Within my notes app, I have a system of navigation and discovery, which is basically like a website where you follow links and use metadata to place things in certain spots (unless you're adding to an existing note.) I use a template which fills in most of what I need and then the remaining is a quick add. I can then query that metadata as if it's a real DB.<p>I use Obsidian for this. I used Roam at one point, but it didn't have a way to hide things which weren't in my navigation path. Everything leaks, because, NETWORK! Nah, I look at it is like building spreadsheets. Each spreadsheet has a certain usage. I don't cram all the data into one spreadsheet. I use multiple spreadsheets. Then the app I use (Obsidian) has the above mentioned tools for nice navigation.