Boost Your Productivity: Apple Notes as a Second Brain 

I had a fling with Obsidian too.

I've been following the second brain lifestyle for a while now and recently picked up the PARA book. I've tried all the tools and had the same problems. Notion and Obsidian are almost too powerful. You spend so much time making a perfect system and get distracted from taking notes and get lost in the process. I keep coming back to Evernote for one feature: Taking a picture of hand written notes and being able to search them (but I hate almost everything else about evernote). Now I think I am going to give Notes a try. The ability to take quick notes, voice notes in the car with siri, searchable handwritten notes, and the integration of note links were what sold me.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I started watching this video but I really enjoyed, especially the little tip on differentiating projects and areas as I have never heard of PARA method until this video. Thanks!

Thanks dear Friend. And yep - Apple not is simple but powerful tool which allows you just work from scratch

Really interesting video - I think I’ve come to a similar conclusion in terms of using apple notes. Having everything accessible at all times, especially on planes, is a game changer. The OCR ive found to be excellent as well. Small, but critical things like this make a big difference in the time it takes to find something you’re looking for

This was helpful for me. Thanks

Nice video, I like that you honestly listed the cons of the app, not only its pros. The fact that it's so hard to export your notes elsewhere is what keeps me from using Apple Notes as opposed to other apps. The same applies to Apple Keychain vs other password managers.

Thank you for the video Bill ! Apple Notes is a useful tool. I also walk into a room forgetting why Im there👍 but only some days I can blame on being 50 yrs old LOL

For progressives summarization I use, for the base level, the underlining of the text and for the next level I add the bold text to the underlined text

I have built a second brain utilizing PDF files as my standard, which are easily added into Apple Notes with tags and notes. I have different Notes databases for particular areas of interest in my life. For example I have close to a 1000 PDF files for writing references in My Well, where all things writing is stored. To be clear, I import the PDFs into Notes for my second brain, but also save the entire My Well database of material on my Mac Mini as a second backup outside of the iCloud, just ion case. In my opinion Apple Notes is relatively easy to use, and I use Siri from my watch or phone to record an idea anywhere anytime.

Excellent video, thank you. I wish Apple notes would be more open to markdown language as well as accordion blocks so it be easier for me to visually compress my notes. But since I am already committed to the Apple ecosystem, I am willing to migrate out of Evernote and into Apple because it does follow Tiago Forte para method to my satisfaction. Other note taking apps like Bearor two tag dependent for me that would make it difficult for how my brain functions as well😊

You've mentioned struggling with finding the line between each folder in that method. I'm also kinda confused with it, especially between Areas and Resources. When I look through all of my notes I think most of them can well fit into Areas and Resources as well. For example, I have 'Home' area, where I put all of my stuff related with Home. So let's say I have a note with list of home related random things like type of the batteries we use in the kitchen scale, and so on. Does it fit in AREA folder? Or it maybe should be put into a RESOURCE called 'Home'? Maybe I just overthink it but I'd like to have a clear vision of what type of notes should be placed in a specific folder. What's your approach to AREAS and RESOURCES folders in PARA method? Great video ;)

How do breaches happen with the end 2 end encryption? Just asking

Try Bear. It is like Apple Notes but better looking and with useful features like backlinks (auto and manual) yet being simple.

The biggest disadvantage is that files cannot be attached, only photos can be attached.

To clarify - apple notes does NOT have backlinks. You can add a link to a note, but a note will not show backlinks.

I, too, was concerned about Apple Notes (and Evernote, etc.) being 'locked down' in proprietary formats on their servers. That was one of the main reasons I got deep into Obsidian. However, I discovered that It's super fast and easy to export Apple Notes (and Evernote, etc.), including attachments, to other apps like Obsidian. The only remaining concern for me is the ephemeral nature of Apple notes. It's all too easy to delete content in an Apple note accidentally. And Apple Notes has no edit history to undo and restore content. That is where Evernote shines over Apple Notes: Evernote content can be backed up to external servers, and there is also the ability to undo and restore the edit history of notes in Evernote. Apple Notes is fantastic for fluid integration across all Apple devices. Evernote is also very good on all Apple devices. Obsidian, on the other hand, does not smoothly scale on multiple devices.

I am back to Bear because if I ever get a new job that uses windows computers I can’t export anything in a markdown or txt 😢

Why not just swipe with your Apple Pencil when you want to highlight. I have never found it difficult to do. In fact, it is very simple.

The problem with apple notes is: iCloud and backup

First 😂❤

the PARA system is such a great way to keep thoughts organized