Obsidian is too daunting, or how to not let productivity apps get in the way

I was having a chat with a friend on using outlining software for productivity, capturing thoughts and ideas, that kind of thing. My weapons of choice for work related ideas had been Trello and Evernote, and I still look up on Trello occasionally for things I had thought of but never bothered to implement purely because of lack of time not because they are less interesting or lost relevance.

But the trouble with these apps is that they misbehaved when I was offline or didn’t behave as fluid as native apps. I was offline a lot more before, but less nowadays as I’m not travelling often owing to childcare. So I eventually resorted to using apple notes for reviews and note taking including handwritten notes, and day one for personal thoughts. I use reminders for keeping track of time sensitive reminders but for day to day, I use TeuxDeux to strike off the finitely many things I can do with finite time. There’s still not a great system for putting down ideas but here too I have a few “mega” notes on apple notes that link to various other notes telling me which papers I plan to work on in the immediate term and what might be more long term. (I did this for a long tech document – I’ll discuss this in a bit.) Occasionally Trello provides some insight but I don’t look into that often unless I’m dried up intellectually.

My friend and I had a chat about obsidian and roam and notion and I concluded that at least for me these apps are too daunting to really work effectively without getting lost in the complexity. There’s anxiety about not using the app to the fullest extent or that ideas might be lost in the abyss. That’s why the mega note makes sense for me. But it may not for others. Ultimately you don’t want apps to so complex that you spend your time jotting things down or searching for things more than you end up working on them.

What’s your favourite tool for research and note taking?