[massysett]

I don't. Use note taking apps, that is.

I tried Org mode and used it for a year or two. I liked its integration of notes and task tracking. The Org Agenda works well. Ultimately I found it a bit chaotic to have tasks scattered amongst text files though. I acknowledge that I probably could have made Org work for this and my current solution (Omnifocus) is better in some ways, worse in others.

For the notes though, I just write plain text notes using Windows Notepad or Mac TextEdit and I put them in an appropriate folder. I have various folders - some for "projects" and others for "reference". I like the folders because I can put other things in them, such as PDFs, emails, spreadsheets, etc. Sometimes I have a single text file for a project that has chronological notes; other times, it's appropriate to add additional files to capture particular ideas, lists, etc.

The note-taking apps don't wind up doing much for me.

[iLemming]

> I just write plain text notes ... and I put them in an appropriate folder

So I guess that means you hardly reuse any of those notes at all? I just can't really imagine the process of having to fish for some creative ideas from those buckets.

[massysett]

I use them every single day. Because I maintain the folder hierarchy, I remember how to descend the folders to find what I need.

Years of experience has taught me that relying on loose tagging webs and searching mechanisms and fancy tools does not work for me, not for notes, not for emails, not for anything else. I organize things into nested hierarchies. This takes maintenance, but so does maintaining tag webs and using the tools to maintain and mine them.

For something that espouses some of these principles (though I do not use this system):

https://johnnydecimal.com