[otikik]

I have never been good at the note-taking thing. There's a grade depending on how much hands-on one is, and how much privacy-oriented one is and how much of the system one wants to own.

* Level 0 is: use a physical notebook or agenda and ditch the digital space. It's actually not that bad. Setup: seconds. Privacy and ownership: great. Not as convenient as a digital thingie. No CTRL-F. * Level 0 is using something that you already have. Send emails to yourself, use keywords in the title and use filters to keep the "notes" organized. Time to set up: 10 minutes. Privacy and ownership: 0 (unless you are your own email provider, in that case you are done) * Level 1 is using a note-taking app which provides the backend. Evernote and the evernote-likes. Setup is minutes, privacy and ownership is also 0. * Level 2 is markdown file, or a hierarchy of files inside a folder, and then using something like dropbox for editing and synching. It is only slightly better than the previous one in that you can move away quickly if you want, and you can have local copies of your stuff. It is easy to set up, some ownership, no privacy. * Level 3 is self-hosting an evernote or dropbox-like and using that. That's possibly years of "fun", with high privacy and ownership.