Goodbye Notion, Obsidian, Org, Notes App, and More. Hello paper...2026-07-22

Goodbye Notion, Obsidian, Org, Notes App, and More. Hello paper.<br>Published 2026-07-22T20:32:47Z<br>DanielWhen I started working as a SWE I saw my colleagues writing stuff into their notes. Everyone had a different system. Some had an infinite text file they just appended stuff to. Others sent messages to themselves in slack. Others had a google docs file they tailored. And the savvier ones had an Org mode setup with Emacs.<br>During my career I&rsquo;ve tried everything but nothing stuck. I create complex setups and stick to them for a few days, and then just tend to forget the note taking app is there. So what I do the most now is to set up timers as reminders to not forget stuff, and occasionally send myself a slack message for stuff I may need to have ready for later.<br>Michael Stevens says pencil is more resilient than pen<br>So when I saw a &ldquo;The Rest is Science&rdquo; episode where Michael Stevens (Youtuber famous for his VSauce channel among other stuff) nerded out for 40 minutes about pens, I felt a bit jealous.<br>This dude had his journaling and note taking all figured out. He cared about how to make his notebooks last. He had opinions on what the best pencils were. He likes to feel the pencil scratching the paper and thus uses the smallest mm lead available.<br>I&rsquo;m messy<br>A huge reason I need to take notes is that I&rsquo;m the secretary of my local church. This means I need to remember stuff that my brain will probably not remember. Also that I need to take note of every meeting. So far I&rsquo;ve been fending myself by always carrying a pen and a pair of scratch notebooks, a small one and a big one depending on what I needed to write.<br>But the issue is that I have like 4 notebooks in different jackets, sometimes forgeting them, forgeting to carry a pen. The &ldquo;notes&rdquo; are just whatever I needed to write at a time. And that&rsquo;s fine in general, but for everything that needs structure, like being able to recall a resolution from a meeting a few months ago, I&rsquo;m a mess.<br>I want to keep being messy but at least in a single place<br>So here&rsquo;s my new note taking setup. Single big, single small notebook. For now I have work, church and personal stuff mixed. I write everyting there in a messy way, BUT with chronology well labeled at the top of the page. That way I can search stuff by date. ALSO, to help myself find stuff I have a small index at the back of the notebook for key stuff, such as important meeting notes, pointing to their date so I can find them easily.<br>Will this last? I don&rsquo;t know. But since I already spent $50 in a Kuru Toga Metal 0.5mm mechanical pencil, a good pocket notebook, and a large notebook, I really want to make this work.<br>At least this has been the most fun I&rsquo;ve had taking notes, and they&rsquo;ve helped me be much more proactive with my duties (like paying the bills, yikes).

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