Interesting system thanks. I use a combination of Mind Mapping and Apple Notes. The former is better for structuring a document (permanent note in your system) and it also encourages the use of key headings and categorising skills. The latter is more for keeping records and for project management which you didn’t touch on.
About exporting / backing up, there is 2 ways I'm using. First is adding a second account in Apple Note. This is tight to your email. a folder called Notes will be created ans you can simply drag your note there. Note will be converted as "draft" email with no sender no recipient. This is an old way, but still valid. Second, I have built a Shortcut app for MacOS. I still need to perfect it, but for now, you select the content of you note, share with the shortcut app. The Shortcut will create a Markdown file on your Download directory, using the first line as filename. That way I can also save it into my Obsidian vault if needed. It might work on iOS too, with the Files app.
And you never gave a single example of how to link notes in a way to enable following from note to note to note. The concept seems to me to be unworkable without some idea of what/how i would want to link a note to another note. An example or two would go much further than 10 minutes of talking about it.
awesome, love this concept, thank you for sharing and your generosity in building the shortcuts for there world 🙂 Look forward the the next one in the series too ✌🏻
Very nice ! I have a similar system but the main difference is that I don't make all the notes for a year in advance. My automation creates a new note every day at 5 past midnight. Your system makes more sense since you can you back or ahead in time to write things down. I also have a shortcut on my homescreen to open todays note. YT doesnt allow me to post a link to it but it's very easy to make. All it does is open the note that has todays date as its title. The date needs to be the same format as the date in the title otherwise it won't find it.
thank you! Really appreciated everything about this video and the shortcut to roll it all out. Super star! Good luck with your channel, I know how much work you have to put in to get these upload, subscribed ✌🏻
Thank you! By the way there is now a second part to this video: Forever Diary Q&A, Ideas and Suggestions ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y14z2hKT2F8.html
Colourful and fun !. Nevertheless, it could be better. If I have a folder called MOVIES and inside I got subfolders (netflix, max...) there is no sense to me to put a banner on every movie. It should be in the main title (movies for instance) or on every subfolder Regards
Absolutely. The point of these videos is simply to show what’s possible, so you can choose whether to apply/tweak/improve and add to your workflow. Thanks for watching!
Where have you been all my life?!!??🤩 I’ve just discovered your channel and am in the process of binge watching your brilliant and helpful videos. Thank you!☀️🌱🦋
Many thanks for this terrific and super helpful video! Is the automation for generating the draft manuscript something that already exists in Apple Notes or is that a separate coding process? I’m at that point with my project now, so any insight is welcome. And yes, when my book becomes a best seller, I will be thanking you!!🤩🎉🌱🦋
I really love this workflow, thanks for sharing!! I'm implementing it now to move away from leaving all of data in a CRM that I might have to move or one that goes out of business.
I use a mix of both tags and folders to organize Apple notes but in reality it’s the search function I rely on the most. I could probably dump everything into a single folder and I wouldn’t even notice. Apple Notes’ search functionality is so powerful that nothing else is really needed.
While the theoretical benefits of links may be nice, they are extremely tedious to keep up in practice as your collection/system grows. With folders, you set up the folder once and you add every new document for this category to that folder. With tags, you set up a tag (or a set of tags) once and you add the tag(s) to every new note relevant for this/these category/categories. For retrieval, you simply move to that folder or filter your notes for the tag(s). That will give you both the exact note you might be searching for and all kinds of related notes. Easy. With links, you have to set up all the links to all the existing relevant documents in your system as 1:1 relationships. And you have to remember all those other relevant documents in the first place (plus, links won't help you to search/filter them out at that point). And then, as your system grows, you have to retroactively add all the links to the old related documents (your note management software might be able to help you with that, but then you are bound to that software). I wouldn't rule out links completely, but I would only use them sporadically and never rely on them to give me a complete picture of all the relevant notes for a subject or category in my system. Not to forget that neither links nor tags work with files on your computer. There is no solution to overcome this that is independent of the (technical) filesystem. And one last word regarding search. The fundamental weakness of search is that you have to know rather precisely what you are looking for. You cannot just browse your collection or a subset of it for 'something', like you can with folders or tags.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the time it takes to create links between notes. It seems to me it would be a lot more burdensome initially, but I'd love to see it in action and be persuaded otherwise.
Some interesting things to think about in the video but I don't agree with the whole business example. Reports and such shouldn't and usually dont live in Notes. Notes is great at what it's meant for which is taking notes. So a good hybrid scheme would be to copy a folder structure from a business project to Notes and storing the notes about the project in the corresponding folders while the actual business docs are stored somewhere else. Adding the suggested action tags like descriptors and action tags then really adds value.
I think the conceptual model of “Folders”, “Tags”, and “Links” is fine, maybe excellent. But, I believe it becomes irrelevant when a person has created more than a few hundred notes. That has been my experience. Over the last 10+ years, I have created 8,000-10,000 notes. Every time I created a new note, I thought the information was important enough that I would likely want to find and use it again sometime in the future. (Heck, that’s really the only reason to create a note!) But, I can tell you now, that I can’t remember what’s in the vast, vast majority of my notes. - - - Yet, at any time in the future, I may need some piece of information and I “think” I created a note a couple years ago with the information I need now. But, how am I going to find that note? I submit that it’s going to be tough to find it, whether I use the “Folders”, “Tags”, or “Links” organizational method. I’ll end up trying several test searches and may or may not find that note. So, this begs the question: “How does a person remember things?” I believe it is because he/she has associated it with one or more of the 4 W’s: Who, What, When, and Where. If a person adds one or more of the 4W’s to each note at the time when he/she created it, it will materially increase the chance of finding a note sime tome in the distant future. Here’s how it can be done: * Who - The are people. Short names are better. Add “Who” as a tag to the note. * What - This is the over-arching topic of the note. Put this in the title of the note. Fewer words is better. - - - Other topics or sub-topics can appear in the body of a note. These can all be found with the note app’s search function. * When - Apple Notes automatically creates and controls values for the note Creation Date and Edited Date. To search by either date, a user can create a “Smart Folder” and have Apple Notes find those notes which meet the criteria. - - - In some cases, those two dates may not be sufficient. Then the key date of the event can be added to the start of the title (like 2024/06/30) or in the body of the note. * Where - This can be any kind of location: Countries, states, counties, cities, buildings, streets, etc. - - - “When” is best implemented as a tag.
I completely agree. And as said in the video the search function is really good in Notes. Probably its strongest feature. You can write down a phone number from a person you met in Paris in 2024 regarding some DVDs and there you have your 4 Ws. Later you can search for any of these 4 and you will find the note without any tags or folders.
great points in this thread - just a few thoughts: 1) Niklas Luhmann (of Zettelkasten fame - see my video about that on this channel) had 90 thousand notes in his archive, collected over 50 years. He was still able to leverage it when writing books/articles. However, he accepted that some notes would completely disappear in the system, never to be seen again. I think this is a very important point, as I feel we often strive for perfection (i.e. a system that never forgets anything) when we would be much better served by a system that works well 80% of the times. 2) great point about search and how people find things. We should always try to summarise the content of a note (in particular, the ones we haven't written: eg, a research paper, a link to a webpage, a video interview, etc) in *our own* words, because those are the ones we'll use in a few years to find that piece of information. The "4 Ws" sounds like a good method, but of course each person will search in different ways.
@@Patrick-NP I have just made a shortcut that lets you select any file in Files and with that selection it automatically creates a new note including filename, file path and tags referencing the file name. Best of both worlds :)
Good video, but it leaves some questions. I prefer a hybrid model using folders where most beneficial and tags for all files and notes. The linking you suggested as the "higher way" works well with notes (Apple Notes, Craft Docs, etc.) but I don't see how this works with regular files on my Mac. This functionality doesn't appear to be built in. Do you think of some smart workarounds that are less obvious but work on a Mac file system? An app like Hookmark, e.g.? Please, consider making a video on this if you have a solution.
So I’m a bit confused as to how the linking is done. I’m adding links to each file as a capture new files or resources? Doesn’t that become even more difficult and tedious? Or am I missing something with how the linking is done?
The problem with categorisation ( or linking) is not the effort you put in, but the return you get from it. It's the "business case" consideration that I was referring to in the video. Usually, if you feel it's a difficult or tedious process, it is probably because you are categorising without a clear goal in mind, resulting in high effort and low return. In reality, there is no need to link every note, and there is no need to do it as you capture them. That need only arises if and when you have a specific goal in mind (or if you have one of those "ah, this reminds me of ...." moments). Until then, you could even decide to place all notes you capture in a generic "everything" folder.
I have been using an app called The Brain which negates the use of either of these although tags are available. This is probably on the far right of your chart. It is based on links. Would love for you to check it out and do a review of it. Thanks.
No, as it's mainly text based. If you start adding lots of photos it could be different, of course, depending on how much space you have left on you device.
Love this. Wanted a shortcut on my desktop that referenced a formatted date to open today’s note so any time I can just pop open the correct note without having to check the date then open folders to get to it. I am new to shortcuts and just couldnt figure out how to send the formatted-today variable to open my note. Can you create such a thing for us?
У вас очень полезные и интересные видео! Видно как качественно вы готовите материал, спасибо вам. С удовольствием посмотрел бы ваше видео о приложении numbers в связке с Apple notes и возможные сценарии использования в повседневной жизни. Все-таки excel или google sheets кажутся перегруженными для использования на мобильном. А numbers более легким в освоении. Так же спасибо за видео о завоевании друзей, очень хорошее и простое для понимания. Вы хороший рассказчик. Надеюсь найдете себя на RU-vid.
Collapsible sections it the thing I've been waiting for. I already use Apple Notes for most things, but found Obsidian better for longer writing, largely because I can do thing like highlight (with a plugin) and collapse sections. Having highlighting and collapsible sections in Apple Notes might bring me over fully to Apple notes.
great then, it looks like iOS18 will do the trick for you. :) obsidian remains a better option for people who are interested in markdown support, portability, and notes navigation (read: backlinks), but hopefully Apple Notes will bridge those gaps soon!
@@Patrick-NP Yeah, my only issue is the markdown and navigation support. I do find navigation (not just backlinks but also the ability to go BACK) in Obsidian much faster. My issue is that I do so much on mobile. I will have to see how Apple Notes looks in iOS 18.
good idea, but an iphone or ipad are way to distracting. I prefer a nice year long paper notebook and a decent pen. A pocket notebook takes up a lot less space and allows for 100% concentration on your writing.
Any thoughts on the durability of the system? Apple might someday change the way the notes app works and the whole system comes crumbling down. Or you might one day decide to leave the apple ecosystem and thereby limit your access. Or am I too pessimistic in this?
Probably a bit pessimistic, but it's a fair question. When you decide to invest time and effort on a system/platform then you want to be reasonably sure it will work for a long time. Obsidian is a safer bet in this sense, as it works with text files, but has disadvantages compared to Apple notes. Having said that, don't let those questions stop you from using the system (or any system you settle on). The original Zettelkasten was entirely paper based. If Luhmann had stopped using it because "someday there could be a fire, and I may lose all my archive" he wouldn't have enjoyed his amazing system for the next 50 years.
Great video… 2 things: 1. You can create the table(s) in Numbers and then just copy/paste into Notes. There is a calendar template in Numbers - create it for the appropriate month then copy/paste to Notes. Works great. 2. On the Mac and on an iPad with external keyboard cmd-opt-[ will go back to the previous note from a link. Cmd-opt-] goes forward again. Not sure if there is some way to emulate that on an iPhone…
Thanks 1. 👍 Great suggestion 2. ❓ Never heard of those shortcuts and they don't appear to work on my Mac. (can't check the iPad+external keyboard). Maybe other viewers on Mac can check them too?
Your videos are very pragmatic, creative and detailed. Thank you. I’m encountering a problem with links in tables. When using CMD+K to create a link it looks fine and works ….once. However when I return to the table it’s just plain text. Same thing if I create it and then just leave the note and return. I can work around by creating the link outside the table and pasting it in. That will then work normally, but a nuisance. Have you encountered anything like that?
Hi, thanks for you message! Strange bug. Could it be that iCloud is slow at saving/syncing the note? Try adding a link, then waiting a few seconds before clicking on it. if that doesn't work, also try to click other cells before you click on the link. let me know how it goes...
@@Patrick-NP I'm afraid neither of those ideas worked. It behaves that way on both iMac and Mac Air. Knowing that you haven't experienced that problem, I guess my next step is apple. Thanks for your quick response.
Thank you so much for this! Silly question but how do you account for monthly log differences re days of the week (not every month starts with a Monday on the first day).
Thanks you! In the monthly log it's the day (1 to 31) that matters; the weekday is there for reference, but it's almost irrelevant. (ie. you could even have a monthly log just with the numbers). so if a month starts on a Thursday, you simply create a log like this: 1 T 2 F 3 S 4 S ...
Didn't see what you do after download just open download and drag? do you need split windows or something, with notes on one side and canva download on other?
You're right, you simply take the file and you drag it into apple notes. Depending on which device you're on (iPhone, iPad, Mac) there is a different way, but based on your question about split window I assume you're on iPad? so yes, one way is to put the files app on one side and Notes on the other, and drag the file across.
Hi! sorry but I'm not sure I got your question right. Are you saying that the content becomes too long on the iPhone and you would like to find a way to having to scroll less?
@@Patrick-NP yes, with onenote you can at least zoom out so that you can see more of the table , but when viewing the calendar on iphone you have to keep scrolling
I see. try rotating your phone, to landscape view. You should be able to see the entire table (or at least more of it, depending on how much content you have in your cells) Hope it helps, let me know how you get on! 👋🏻
What a nice setup. I have made a note for my trip with days listed and the same sections as you have, “what to do, accommodation, transportation, links, etc”. May be my note will get to big (file size) with all infos over all days, pictures, links, text etc? Your set up with a note each day will be of less file size, but it will be a lot of notes instead. Do you have any idea of how many days my single note will cover before it gets to big file size and difficult to handle ?
hi, thanks for your message! I don't think there is a maximum size for notes, so in theory you could keep adding "days" to a single note. There might be a limit on your phone due to the amount of RAM or storage space it has, or to how "old" it is. In any case it should give you some warning signs before it stops working, for example it may become slow or unresponsive. if that happens, maybe avoid adding more stuff to the same note, and use another one instead. Enjoy your trip!
This is a great use of Apple Notes to keep all your trip information in just 1 place. I thought that you might be interested in looking at Planning Motion travel app. Same idea with some very useful planning tools. My partner and I created Planning Motion web app dedicated to trip planning. With Planning Motion, you can of course have all your information in just 1 place, and you also get your plans in an interactive calendar, see your itinerary on Google Maps, have your expenses in 1 page with currency conversion, and much much more. Please have a look at our getting started guide on our RU-vid Channel www.youtube.com/@PlanningMotion-Travel-Planning I would be very interested in knowing what you think of our app:)
