#WritersCoffeeClub 22 March: How do you organise your notes?

I have a multi-tiered note-taking system. Level 1 is the Notes app on my phone. It receives all kinds of random input.

Level 2 is a Notion doc where I collect the notes that I deem worthy of inclusion in a story.

Level 3 is the outline for a specific story, but where I don’t know yet where it fits exactly.

Some notes grow from level 3 and become part of the story, though sometimes I also have to downgrade them again.

Level 1 also acts as an inspiration pool for poetry.

None of this organisation is precise or guaranteed to be accurate.

#WritersCoffeeClub – 22nd Mar. How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)

They’re in the iOS Notes app and no more organised than that unless I put them in another app. I have one called Agenda sitting here ready to go when I want to copy and paste them all in.

If I’d used my default Apple account in Notes, I could sort them into a folder, but somehow that isn’t an option with additional accounts 🤷🏻‍♀️

I looked into Scrivener and various others when I downloaded Agenda. Many need a subscription or aren’t on iOS, and Scrivener seemed old and complicated just for keeping notes in a folder.

#WritersCoffeeClub 22/3: How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)

Obsidian all the way. A folder per project, with notes on ideas, people, places, possible outcomes, images, the works.

#WritersCoffeeClub 22. How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)

I corrall them, so they don't roam wild, but can fight, rut, and graze where I can see them

#WritersCoffeeClub 22. How do you organise your notes?

Before: In a couple of text documents, and in a note app on my mobile.

I'm trying Obsidian now, but I haven't really grasped all its possibilities yet.

#WritersCoffeeClub 22. How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)

Weirdly, I use spreadsheets to make notes. I find it easier to keep track of timelines, character bios & suchlike in this format and also having multiple tabs in the same program makes for a less cluttered desktop with everything available in one window.

#WritersCoffeeClub 3/22. How do you organise your notes?

To me, making notes is just worrying about the future: there is no point because the things you worry about usually don't materialize and the things that really matter crop up out of the blue.

So I just let the story flow without recourse to notes.

I write notes only when I'm procrastinating.