Notes management

A big part of being a developer is being able to keep good notes because being a developer is a constant process of learning.

So you need to keep notes of what you’ve learnt, what you want to learn or keep track of. Also notes on your understanding of a topic or technology.

Notes management is now a big topic on social media and on YouTube. Search for ‘how to manage notes’ and you’ll get hundreds of videos where someone talks through their notes ‘setup’.

Recently I watched one by a developer, who makes great videos, and he went through his process of creating notes and how they are organised. What followed was a 15 min video, where he listed over seven different apps he uses for creating notes, from articles, Tweets, handwritten notes, capturing notes in various apps. One app for work notes, one for personal, and a paper based note book. It was a lot, and far over complicated. Just use one thing, pen and paper plus an app to store some notes, you don’t need 7 different apps.

I think the issue is really these notes apps, as they are all competing with one another with new features, plus now the use of AI, these apps are trying to do everything and give the user new features all the time in order to keep the user tied in with their platform.

Notes management is a crazy topic, but really it should be simple. Find a way to write some notes on a topic, and be able to find it again quickly and easily letter when you need to have a refresher.