Before You Try Out That New Note-Taking System, Make Sure You Have This One Thing
If you don’t, it’s guaranteed to fail.
Note-taking is going through a renaissance.
Or maybe it’s just me.
It’s not enough now to just have a notebook, or just type little stickies on your desktop (yes, I’m aware nobody actually does that anymore). Now we have battles over which app is the best for notes: do you use the simplicity of mem.io? The academic caché of Roam Research? The independence of Obsidian? Or did you buy one of the gazillion Notion templates that replicate some form of Building a Second Brain, Getting Things Done, or a Zettelkasten?
Or maybe you’re a purist and you “simply” have notebook and pen. “Simply” in quotes, because that’s just another rabbit hole, choosing not just the right notebook and pen (and ink!) but also the right note-taking system: Cornell notes? Bullet journal? GTD started out as a notebook-based system, though I personally prefer the GSD system myself.
And if you’re an environmentally minded person, you can even convince yourself that you’re somehow saving the world by going “paperless” and using lithium batteries and fossil-fuel generated electricity instead of killing a tree.
