Ask HN: What starts to break down as your notes grow?

[vajafafa]

Hi HN,

For people who keep a lot of notes over time: what actually gets harder once your note collection grows?

I’m not really asking which tool is best. I’m more interested in the failure modes.

For example: • capture is easy, but organizing later becomes heavy • search works, but reusing information in context is awkward • one note ends up belonging to multiple places • structure helps at first, then becomes overhead

If you’ve used tools like Obsidian, Notion, Logseq, Apple Notes, or plain Markdown for a while, what started to feel limiting for you?

[londonanon]

Over time, my limitation has always been the tool.I now make notes exclusively in plain text or Markdown with some light folder organisation in the same place. Then, when I need to find something but can't remember where, I `grep`. It has never failed me once.

[vajafafa]

What does your workflow look like these days in practice? Are you using any app on top of it, or mostly just plain text / Markdown files, folders, and grep?

[londonanon]

Still just text/markdown with grep. I fondly remember the first days when I started seeing beyond the apps! It was strange but I eventually got used to it. It was a bit like these blank-page writing apps / websites in vogue atm. Once the distractions were gone, I worked so much quicker. BUT, this is very personal - the important thing is finding your flow. If it works, run with it.