u/Inevitable_Okra_9947

I've bounced between Notion, Apple Notes, Obsidian, Keep, back to Notion… and finally figured out why nothing stuck: I was cramming four unrelated jobs into one "notes" bucket.

When I actually separated them, the chaos made sense:

1. Thinking out loud - half-formed ideas, journaling. Wants to be fast and frictionless.
2. Reference - articles/docs I want to keep and reread. Wants to be clean and searchable.
3. Talking it through - increasingly I "think" by chatting with AI. That's a note too, really.
4. Watch/read later - videos and links I'll get to. Wants to not become 90 open tabs.

The trick that fixed it for me — it was giving each of those a type instead of dumping them in one pile, then keeping them all in one place so I'm not app-switching.

Curious how others split this. Do you keep "read later" and "notes" separate, or is that just more overhead? What's your actual system?

(Full disclosure since this sub is strict about it: this frustration is also why I ended up building my own thing. Happy to share in a comment if anyone wants, but genuinely more interested in how you all solve it.)