I have a problem.
Every once in a while, I would find myself poking around the internet, searching for a new note-taking app. When I discovered one, I’d lose the entire day—and usually the night too—testing it, adjusting it, building elaborate plans for how I’d use it in the future.
And then, within a few days, I’d abandon it—frustrated, guilty, and already scanning the horizon for the next so-called solution.
Even when I stuck with a note-taking app for a little longer, I couldn’t resist restructuring it, tweaking the setup again and again. Looking back, I realize the one thing I wasn’t actually doing was the core activity itself: making notes.
Instead, I was endlessly planning to make notes. That cycle went on for about eight years, each loop slightly different but equally unproductive.
Then something unusual happened.
I committed to sticking with one system for at least a year. The learning curve was steep, the nights long, but I convinced myself it was worth it. I got through the first year. Then the second. Then the third. And now, looking back, I see that I haven’t made any changes to my note-taking setup in more than two and a half years.
Finally, I managed to make note-taking boring—and that freed me to focus on what actually matters. No new apps, no endless restructuring, just the work itself.
In this post, I’ll share what finally helped me escape that slightly toxic productivity loop, and how you can do the same.
What is a personal knowledge management system?
The term “personal knowledge management” didn’t exist until recently, so everyone seems to have their own version of it. In simple terms, a personal knowledge management (PKM) system is any system that stores and manages the knowledge you’ve acquired over time.
Although the term itself is new, analog versions of these systems have been around for a while. Zettelkasten is a good example of this. But with everything becoming digital nowadays, digital PKMs are starting to gain traction and pick up pace.
I define a “good” personal knowledge system based on three factors.
- First, how easy is it to create something in the system(a note, for example).
- Second, how easy is it to store that information once it’s created.
- And third, how easy is it to find what you’ve stored when you need it.
People did great things in the past without any of this? Why do we need one now?
An argument can be made that we don’t need a personal knowledge management system at all. After all, Thomas Edison managed to produce thousands of inventions with nothing more than a messy desk and a stack of notebooks. Isaac Newton came up with groundbreaking theories, working with just a few notebooks and scattered notes.
My take on this aligns with something Steven Pinker said in an interview(Time stamp: 34:00). He was reading a quote from Thomas Edison in his book, Enlightenment Now, where Edison wrote beautifully about how electricity would liberate women. Pinker says, “This is a guy who spent hours with filaments and light bulbs, and he could write like an angel.” What struck me most was Pinker’s insight: “Probably because there wasn’t a telephone, radio, let alone texting or social media, the way you presented yourself was through your prose, so you cultivated it the same way you kind of arranged yourself in a mirror.”
The challenge today is that we have all those distractions, making it much harder to present ourselves, ‘as ourselves’. The modern world bombards us with too much information. As comedian Dave Chappelle once put it in a stand-up special, “How do you care about anything when you know every goddamn thing?”
The same rules apply here. A proper knowledge management system can help you focus on what truly matters and leave everything else at the door.
If you’re reading this blog post, you probably need one too!
But this is not something we learn from anywhere
Whether you’re an industry professional, a student, or anyone working in the digital realm, you can benefit from a good PKM system. The problem is that it’s rare for any institution to teach us how to do this, so keeping track of your digital knowledge can quickly become a challenge.
I learned this the hard way.
It took me several years to figure out what works and what doesn’t. My goal in this blog post is to make that process easier and faster for you than it was for me.
Good news, Bad news: There’s an app for everybody
By 2026, the note-taking tools market is expected to reach $1.35 billion.
The good news is that there’s an app for everyone, and most of the best PKM systems are free to use. The bad news is that new note-taking apps are popping up every week, making it hard to decide which one you should choose.
The shiny object syndrome is real, and chasing the “latest and greatest” can waste a lot of your time. This is the dilemma you have to face.
So, let’s see how to tackle it.
Find Your Inner Note-Taking Persona
The best approach when choosing a personal knowledge management system is to first decide what you want to do with it.
Do you simply want to jot down notes? Do you want to “connect” your notes? Or is your goal just to store knowledge bits in a way that makes them easier to filter and sort?
Are You a Connecter?
- You are an architect.
- Architects enjoy planning and designing processes and frameworks, and a note-taking tool helps them organize their ideas.
Are You a Databaser?
- You are a librarian.
- Librarians enjoy collecting resources and need a note-taking tool that makes it easy to retrieve notes.
Are You Somewhat In Between or Unsure?
- You are a gardener.
- Gardeners like to experiment, connect different ideas, and need a tool that helps them grow their imaginations.
Pick one app and stay with it for a while
Depending on your use case, you might need to combine two or more apps to achieve your goals, but a good rule of thumb is to manage everything from a single place. The aim should be to avoid creating a Frankenstein’s monster of a productivity system, which often ends up being far from productive.
I should know—I’ve made plenty of them in the past.
What I’ve learned is that it’s always better to keep things simple when taking notes and turning them into creative work. The key is to pick one app or system and stick with it for a while.
Why is this so important?
When you first start using a PKM system, there’s a good chance you haven’t yet realized what kind of note-taking persona you have. The longer you stay with one system, the more opportunities you have to understand yourself, even if the app itself isn’t perfect.
It’s like trying to walk across a swamp. On the other side lies your perfect PKM system, and you know there’s a path to get there—but the path isn’t clear. Would you just run toward the other side, hoping you’re on the right path? Or would you move forward step by step, feeling your way and making sure each step is solid before you take it? We can all agree the second approach is more precise—and ultimately faster.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Digital vs. Analogue Note-Taking
Analog Note-Taking
When choosing a PKM system, one of the most frequently asked questions is whether to go analog or digital—and for good reason. Taking notes by hand isn’t new; people have been doing it for centuries. For some, handwritten notes even work better than digital ones, even in today’s world.
Handwritten notes offer a lot of creative flexibility. You can color-code them, draw boxes, and customize each page in countless ways. Sometimes, it’s simply easier to jot something down by hand than on a tablet or laptop, especially when you need to make notes on the go. Analog note-taking can also help memorize things much faster because spending more time on a page helps you visualize it in your mind.
That said, I also believe it’s nearly impossible to avoid digital note-taking in today’s world. Most information and many courses are digital, making a digital PKM system almost unavoidable.
Digital Note-Taking
One of the main advantages of digital note-taking is the convenience of storing everything in one place. As long as you have internet access, you can reach all your notes, which is especially helpful if you commute or are constantly on the go.
Digital notes are also easier to organize. You can sort them into folders, search with keywords, and find what you need far faster than flipping through countless pages. Also, if you prefer handwriting, you can use an iPad or similar device, giving you the flexibility of analog note-taking with the accessibility of digital. This way, your notes remain accessible from anywhere.
My Note-Taking Journey
Disclaimer
Everybody’s different. What works for me might not work for you—and that’s exactly the point of this blog post. My goal isn’t to claim that the app I use will work for everyone, but to help you find a system that works for you.
That said, my app of choice is Obsidian. Here’s why I chose it.
Six Years of Searching for the Best Note-Taking App
When you first decide to choose a PKM system, there are a lot of unknowns. For instance, I didn’t really know what type of note-taker I was. I used to think I was an architect when I first heard the concepts of architect, gardener, and librarian, but after eight years and countless failed attempts, I realized I was somewhere between an architect and a gardener.
I started with Evernote, the obvious choice at the time, because there weren’t many alternatives. I began making notes, and over time, I accumulated more than 2,000 entries across different notebooks. But then I realized something really important: I couldn’t build any meaningful connections between my notes using this app. It wasn’t Evernote’s fault—the app simply wasn’t built for linking notes—and I had overlooked that point. I couldn’t truly “think” with Evernote.
Next, I moved to OneNote, which offered more options than Evernote. But it had the same core problem: no real way to link notes. On top of that, it’s an infinite canvas. I know people like that about OneNote. But I was not a fan.
After that, I switched to Notion. I still use it to store some information, but it never became my primary PKM system. Notion was different in that it allowed me to link notes and offered a more refined filtering system. I spent about two years with Notion, but looking back, I realize I was constantly tweaking my templates—daily notes, task management, and so on.
That ended up wasting a lot of my time.
Right before I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, I began questioning my choice. The biggest issue was that Notion wasn’t truly designed for note-taking. Over the years, it has shifted more toward being a collaboration platform, which, I think, is a smart financial move for the company, but it created friction for my personal workflow. At the time, I was managing almost everything in my life—both professional and personal—through Notion, and eventually, I realized it was time to move on.
At the end of the day, I wanted a system that was built for writing.
Back on the market, I had three main requirements for a new app:
- It had to be designed primarily for writing.
- support linking (preferably bidirectional).
- and be lightweight compared to Notion.
That’s when I discovered Roam Research. It met most of my criteria: it was fast and built for bidirectional linking. Roam was the first tool to make a big deal about this feature.
But I quickly saw a dealbreaker.
Roam was designed for jotting down notes in bullet points, not for full-fledged writing. I felt the same mental fatigue I had experienced with Notion before. There was also no traditional file system, which made me feel like I had to constantly “catch” files before they got lost. Perhaps a bit OCD on my part, but it was a real frustration.
Just in time, Obsidian was released, and I jumped on it.
I’ll save the full details of my Obsidian experience for another blog post, but in short, it solved all the problems I had faced over eight years with other PKM systems. It has a robust file system, so I always know where my files are. It’s local and secure, uses Markdown so my notes are future-proof, and most importantly, it’s designed for writing.
The first year required some setting up, building the system in such a way that I never had to reach for the mouse unnecessarily. Today, I draft this blog post in Obsidian, plan my year, month, week, and day on it, do all my PhD writing through it, and spend over four hours a day in it. It’s flawless.
I finally found the one.
Biggest Lessons I Learned from 8 Years of Note-Taking
Avoid productivity gurus on the internet
Most people share what they think is “cool”—something they tried out last week—but sooner or later, you’ll realize that most of these methods aren’t reliable. Chances are, the same person will be promoting another “cool” note-taking app or technique the following week.
In my opinion, there’s only one truly reliable source for advice on these matters, if advice is even needed at all: books that have stood the test of time. One book I recommend is Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Visualized Note-Taking Can Be a Mess
Visualized note-taking can be appealing at times, but as your collection of notes grows, it can become difficult to sort and manage them.
Just because something looks visually appealing doesn’t guarantee it will be useful. In most cases, it’s far more effective to keep things simple.
Over time, the goal should be to develop a system that works for you—not one that constantly demands work to maintain.
The Apps We Use Shape Who We Are
As I continued using Roam Research, I began to notice a certain mental fatigue building up over time. That led me to start looking for alternatives. That’s when I came across Nick Milo’s video, Why Obsidian Will Overtake Roam. At that point, I was Obsidian on the side but hadn’t fully committed to it yet.
In the video, Nick introduced a concept I had never considered before: the apps we use shape who we are. Everything we interact with daily influences us, so it makes sense that the note-taking apps we rely on would have an impact as well. Some apps are designed solely for jotting down notes, not for actual writing. When you try to write in an app that isn’t built for it, you’re essentially working against the system.
This was exactly what I was experiencing with Roam Research. I wanted to write, but the app kept steering me toward simply logging notes. I was working against the system, trying to do something it wasn’t designed for, and it was shaping me into a note logger rather than a writer.
Do not get attached too much to the visual aspects
When you find a visually appealing app, it’s easy to become reluctant to try another one, even if it doesn’t feel quite right. The key is knowing when to let go.
But how do you know if you’ve found the app that truly works for you? In my experience, it’s the one you enjoy spending time with more and more over time—without feeling the need to constantly tweak it to meet your needs. If it feels effortless and natural, you’ve found the right fit.
Speed makes a huge difference
Let’s take two personal knowledge management apps and look at a basic workflow. You create a note, place it in the right folder, and add metadata so you can find it later. Straightforward stuff.
Now, imagine one app takes five seconds to do this, and another takes only two. At first glance, three seconds doesn’t look significant. But repeated thousands of times, the difference stacks up.
The faster app quietly returns hours of your time.
Those small moments of friction shape the way you use a tool. Over time, they decide whether your system feels natural and alive—or heavy and resistant.
How to Get the Absolute Most Out of Digital Note-Taking
As someone who always has some kind of writing tasks in hand, I’ve found myself leaning away from visual-heavy note-taking apps. For me, notes work better as a thinking hub than a canvas. Coming from a background with mind maps, sticky dashboards, and endless colored boxes, the shift to non-visualized notes wasn’t just a change in tools—it forced me to build an entirely different skill set.
Typing Skills
Typing fast is one of those quiet superpowers you don’t notice until you have it. If you spend any serious time at a computer, it changes everything. Yet, I’m always surprised by how many people shrug it off, as if it doesn’t matter.
The facts are simple: if you type 40 words per minute, you’re moving at about the same speed as writing by hand. That’s fine, but it’s also a ceiling. Push that up to 80 words per minute, and you’ve doubled your output—twice the notes, twice the drafts, twice the thoughts captured before they slip away. There’s no magic in it; it’s just numbers.
Some people argue that speech-to-text makes typing less important. And sure, voice technology has improved a lot. But in practice, it still feels clunky. Words get lost, punctuation disappears, and the rhythm of your thinking gets interrupted. “Thinking on paper” isn’t just a phrase; there’s something about typing that locks your ideas into place. It’s faster, cleaner, and more reliable than scribbling or dictating. That’s one of the biggest advantages of digital note-taking—but only if you invest the time to build that speed.
I wasn’t good at it when I started. My first touch-typing sessions clocked me at 21 words per minute—slower than handwriting. It was humbling and clear that I needed to improve if I wanted typing to be an advantage instead of a bottleneck.
After a couple of months of practice, I was hitting 80+ words per minute, and on good days, over 90. The difference was immediate and obvious. Taking notes, writing papers, drafting emails—it all felt lighter, smoother, more natural. For my PhD work, it meant I could keep up with my own thoughts instead of constantly falling behind them.
The nice thing is, once you learn it, you don’t lose it. It’s like driving—you might get rusty if you step away, but the skill stays with you forever.
Programming Skills
While this isn’t a requirement for digital note-taking, having some coding skills can be very useful, and any language will do. There are so many great digital note-taking apps available for free, and with coding skills, you can create macros or add-ins to customize your workflow.
For example, when I started using Obsidian, I wanted to integrate Zotero so I could manage all my scientific article highlights directly in Obsidian. This was back in 2022. At the time, there was only one way to do it, and it required a small amount of coding to set things up on Zotero’s end.
But it was absolutely worth spending the time to set it up. These days, there are many easier ways to do the same thing, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
Long-Term Benefits of a Note-Taking App That Works for You
A good note-taking system works for you, not the other way around. You don’t have to fight with it. Over time, it can grow into an evergreen forest of knowledge, acting like a second brain. The more notes you have, the more useful they become, because they start to connect and build on each other.
That said, a modern way of procrastinating is spending more time organizing your stuff than actually doing any work. With all the note-taking apps out there, it’s really easy to fall into this trap. Before you know it, you’re just moving things around and tweaking setups instead of actually creating or learning. A solid system stops that from happening and keeps the focus on using your notes, not endlessly “managing” them.
I figured this out the hard way while hunting for the “perfect” note-taking app. Most apps I tried worked okay at first, but once I had a lot of notes, things got messy and hard to sort. That’s why, before picking an app, ask yourself: Can this handle a growing collection without slowing me down? If it can, your notes can become a real, self-running resource that actually helps you instead of stressing you out.
Conclusion
Finding the note-taking app for personal knowledge management that really works for you isn’t always easy, but it’s totally worth the effort. Once you find the right one, it can be way more rewarding than you ever imagined.
I’d love to hear about your PKM journey too—feel free to share it in the comments!