Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?

I'm not strictly taking notes any more.

I'm journaling/free-writing to get extended/detailed ideas down that I've had, which consists of a bunch of text files in a directory that sometimes end up combined in subdirectories, often refer to each other, and are frequently appended to/refined.

But the main thing I'm doing note-wise is that first I read a thing through once, trying to carefully understand, but not necessarily commit to memory, everything before I move on. Then I read through it a second time trying to phrase every fact I encounter as question-answer pairs that go into a spreadsheet to be imported into an Anki subdeck for that thing.

This works in a similar way live (like meetings and phone calls), but I'm taking notes with paper and pencil, and later extracting the facts from them for Anki.

Things of only temporary importance get lumped into an "ephemeral" subdeck, where cards get suspended/deleted with extreme prejudice.

I do an hour to an hour and a half of Anki every morning. Might sound like a lot, but half of it is Spanish, and at least 15-20 minutes of it is done while shitting, so it's not like I would have been doing something else.

If I don't get up to an hour/hour-and-a-half, I add new cards to review until I get there. I also add new cards to review at other times of the day if I'm bored and want to kill five minutes.

I've been told this is similar to the Cornell Method, but with a lot more review.

YMMV: I use something called low-key Anki where the only buttons used are "Again" and "Good."

I keep my life notes in plain text in a directory called "notes", usually formatted with markdown. I rarely render the markdown but I still find it useful for structuring my notes. I also incorporate a very lean take on getting things done (GTD). I host it on github and sync it between devices with syncthing.

My main requirement is that it should be very easy to start writing the note. This means not many decisions to make first (deeply nested directories or tags), and not being bound to a certain application or having an internet connection.

Plain text is great because it's small, portable, and I like being able to use grep against my note directory to find things.

basic structure:

- One file per year for a basic daily log in (log/2022.md) this is where I do at least half of my notetaking and journaling.

- a few GTD files in the top level, in.md, next.md, somedaymaybe.md

- a projects directory, prj/, which has a sub directory for various projects, these can be small stuff that take weeks, or longer things

- a list directory, lst/, which has lists of thing, example: books to read, groceries to buy, etc.

- a reference directory, ref/, for storing things that I'd like to remember but aren't active projects or notes that I expect to add to often (those should be projects or just go in log/), example: a recipe

I've been doing this for a few months now and I am liking it quite a bit and expect to stick with it. The biggest headache is getting syncthing to work with ios so that I can reliably have my notes on my phone, open to suggestions on that.

I've been trying out a bullet journaling (basically an enhanced TODO list system), I think it helps with organization, clarity/prioritization, and building habits: https://archive.ph/cTOzT (the video doesn't work, but the prose and images should all be there)

I basically only use the daily log since I'm too lazy to aggregate stuff into weekly or index views. You can incorporate aspects like a habit tracker or mood tracker matrices into the journal to see how well you're performing against goals like exercise and how you're feeling over time. It might also be useful to track which activities make you feel energized vs fatigued, and use that to help determine what you enjoy doing.

As a side-effect, the bullet journal becomes a memento documenting what you experienced and did over a certain period of time, and can be useful for reflection and reprioritization.

I also write electronic notes in plaintext/markdown which I type up on my computer and put into a Github-wiki-like web interface. I check these into git for versioning and to be able to diff notes over time. These notes are either log-formatted (append-only dated entries of something that changes over time), or I might reprocess and refine them over time into https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes which essentially becomes a personal knowledgebase.

Just checked my EverNote stats for me to comment here. I have 1500+ Notes spanning more than 10 years (since 2011). I have 18 notebooks as major categorization of work-company-A vs ideas vs bookmarks vs project-x .. etc. I use this daily, for tasks, snippets, basic todos both work and personal, and attach rich media (screenshots, code, links) in most notes.

Syncing is also what I'm after and all my devices have EN: macs at home and work, my spare windows laptop, tablets and smarphones (Android). Principle: if its for my personal consumption, I usually put it in my EN, but work stuff are in GDocs/GDrive for shareability. I also limit putting in my notes any sensitive info and credentials, at the very least, for sanity and security purposes, as I have a KeyPassXC for that. I also don't use Evernote specific groupsharing/tasks/other features; it's just the sync-all-my-notes-across-my devices. Syncing works best in their desktop apps for the most part, but buggy in Android (dups, conflicts). Paying $2+USD/mo for this so im not complaining. But it could be better.

I have a page in Notion called "Quick Notes". I have this page favorited and have a widget on the home screen of my phone where it shows up prominently. This makes it easy to get things out of my brain very quickly.

Every evening I journal about / document my day and set up basic todos for the next day (takes about 15 minutes). During this time I also review my Quick Notes page and file things away as necessary (e.g. Todos, notes about something I researched, calendar events, summary of an interesting conversation I had with a stranger, etc get put where they need to go).

As far as note-taking when I'm learning something, I do something like the Cornell method where I write notes as questions and then write the answers underneath or to the side. When I review the notes, I try to answer the question first and check my answer against my notes. This format also makes it really easy to throw things in Anki.

I use journaling and daily notes in particular as the entry point of all my notes and information I collect. Just going through the daily notes I should find my way to the rest of the knowledge I've collected. I've described there in [1] and created a small visualization [2].

Each day, I scribble ideas and take notes about my discoveries as part of my daily note. It's just an outline at that point (most of the time).

At the end of each week, during my weekly review, I extract the content of my daily notes into separate notes, keeping a link there to respect my traceability principle.

When I extract the content, I use the Zettelkasten method and split content between literature notes and permanent notes. I wrote about this method in [3] and described my own organization in [4].

[1]: https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-10-07-periodic-journaling-p... [2]: https://dsebastien.net/_next/image?url=%2Fstatic%2Fimages%2F... [3]: https://dsebastien.net/blog/2022-05-01-zettelkasten-method [4]: https://dsebastien.net/blog/2021-12-03-personal-knowledge-ma...

A work I take notes of all the meetings I attend in Markdown with Notepad++, and they're in a folder that's backed up automatically. There are pages in Confluence for ongoing work, and I no longer use OneNote.

A home, I keep a diary, one file per month, lightly formatted text (not Markdown) edited with vim with a nightly script that converts parts of the text into a set of web pages and drops them into an in-house Wiki. That's the Wiki I wrote close to 20 years ago that's a holding pen for pages on pretty much any subject that interests me. A hand-written NLP/NER pipeline munges the pages looking for interesting material and generates indexes that get added into the Wiki as well. The pipeline still needs a lot of work, because right now it's more "interest" than production ready.

The wiki is hugely useful for material clipped from web pages and emails as well as notes that I write myself. Documentation for any of the software I've written for myself and still use is there as are several hundred old Usenet threads. There's a big list of media that I want to view/read/consume at some point, and more gets added than gets marked off.

I'm still looking for the perfect PIM (and yes, I do know there's no such thing), and the search generates notes as well. If I ever find it, it's going to replace Joplin (like the UI but not the need for a database), Dendron (like flat files but not the UI), Drafts (like the virtual notebooks built from tags but find the UI clumsy) and of course the wiki I wrote.

I have a very structured proces that has grown up over time, using OneModel (aka OM) software I wrote (AGPL; URL and some more info in my profile). I often capture thoughts using voice notes on my phone, then roughly daily I commit those to the OM notes in the right place so that I will come across them again at the most convenient time for me -- they go in the calendar, topic notes, long-term planning, todo list, in-progress-ideas notes, staging of tasks I haven't prioritized yet, etc. Then daily, I review each of those areas and update the plan for the day before starting on it. My daily routine of processing those things, then using them, has been very helpful to me, not just for staying organized, but deciding & remembering what to focus on in my practicing/improving of habits next, periodic reviews (some of which are also in Anki), etc.

ps: It also helps me with the process of going from brainstorming to writing for others. It can export notes to text outline form using indentation (can import from those also, though not as smoothly as I would like, it does work) or export to a legal-numbered outline (1.1.2, 1.1.3, ...). Also exports to simple html which is how I generate my web sites.

Also: I have been using this about daily for over 10 years and it is extremely helpful to me in a variety of ways, in daily use. Helps me keep track of long-term purpose, short-term todos, everything in between, and more.

I also use it for my personal journal, and it can show logs of activity by date range which i sometimes use a rougher/informal personal journal or reference.

For me the best methodology can be abstracted to the following 3 things and in the end of the day is all I really need:

    1. Ability for a tree-like organization of notes. It can be as simple as some directories in your OS with text files and subdirectories. Or a cool app with Notebooks and Sub-notebooks etc. It doesn't matter.

    2. Ability to search everything at once. It can be a grep command or a an app with text search functionality. It doesn't matter again. Strive to have easily searchable titles and content in the notes (What "easily" means here, depends on your search preferences and habits).

    3. Ability to effortlessly synchronize your notes to different hosts. Maybe you'll put your simple directories and subdirectories of text files in Dropbox or something. Maybe you'll use a paid or open-source application with a mobile app or a web client etc.

---

I explain the thought process here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31799695 but it isn't important as those basic rules above.

Apple Notes. Everything else is too high-friction, I always end up back at Notes.app. I always have my phone, that's already installed, and it syncs to every other device I'm likely to want to take or read notes on. I don't do any indexing or cataloging and I don't even bother with categories unless I'm sitting down to write a bunch of notes for a particular project or topic all at once—all I do is make sure the notes are verbose enough and include the right words to let me find what I want later with search.

[EDIT] Uh, so I addressed the how I organize my notes (I basically don't—the value added by organizing them is too low to be worth the effort) but as for the "what": mostly I use notes to capture ideas I don't want to forget. If I'm out and about, or pretty much any time I'm not at my desktop, that's usually some little thought that popped into my head that I'll forget if I don't get it down now (so, that's why I end up back in Notes when I try notebooks or whatever instead—I always have my phone, but sometimes forget a notebook, so I end up with notes both places, at which point it's better to just drop the notebook).

At my workstation, I tend to take notes on things like complex command-line invocations, or else use them as a kind of archive for my paste buffer (for things I may want to copy-paste again in a few days, or months, that may not end up in the shell history where I happen to need them, or weren't anything shell-related to begin with). I will sometimes sketch out e.g. system designs in a notebook, but those get turned into real digital documents before long, if they matter (they don't go in my notes).

I keep a daily markdown file in a github repo.

  * To search my notes I can pull + grep the files.
  * To view a specific day's notes in my browser, github renders the file with images and everything.
  * To upload images, I can paste from my clipboard into the notes using github's editor; they upload and link the images for me.

This mostly works for me because I hate typing on my phone -- I do all my actual notetaking on a desktop. If I use my phone for any note taking, it's a shopping or to-do list. For that I use google keep.

I tried using Notion but it costs money and isn't portable. Roam is similar. Unigraph is a similar tool that isn't publicly available yet but worth checking out if you like those tools.

Logseq is the closest thing to what I wanted, but you have to use their app and I like being able to add notes from any computer in just a browser. For work I keep my notes in a single Google Doc, which works surprisingly well, but doesn't work for my personal notes since I want them to be easily backed up and portable.

Notes cover a lot of ground--from school lecture notes, reading notes, to something as simple as a todo list? Notes are writing, and writing has a purpose. I don't know what your purpose is, so I can only respond literally to your questions:

> "what kind of notes"

I take several kinds of 'notes'. I like to draw, so I have a sketch book. I have several different formats. Small notebook for drawing from life, including watercolor sketches. Medium size notebook for 'visual ideas' or organizational ideas (patterns of thought and their visualizations).

When I'm designing something I always use black pen & markers on letter size loose leaf paper. This way I can later scan these notes if something turns out to be very useful.

When I'm researching a philosophical topic I often make a text document for each book I'm reading. At the top goes a summary of the book and my interest. The next half are verbatim quotes. I find for my interest in philosophy a direct quote is more useful for my writing. I will follow the quote often with questions or my responses to those ideas. I also make a point of listing new words and their definitions if provided.

If I'm trying to learn a technical/programming topic the kinds of notes don't matter too much since I'm trying to get into code asap or something that I'm enabled to do by the research. Outlines are useful.

> "organizing your thought"

Not easily answered on the face of it, and highly dependent on the subject matter. If you asked me last month or next week I might have a different answer, but I think for me everything starts with a blank piece of paper and a pen and then becomes code or text files.

I'm not in school currently. Memorization for tests is not an objective, and so my methodologies reflect this fact. YMMV

Good luck.

For a bit I was using vimwiki. I really liked it, however, getting it to work with images was a huge pain in the butt. So lately I have been using Obsidian. It allows me to use vim mode, paste images, and also write notes in md format.

Check it out at https://obsidian.md/

I just want one universal synchronized tool but I'm stuck in notes hell.

reMarkable for scribbles and ebook highlights (which can't sync anywhere)

Pocket for a black hole of bookmarks

1Password for serious important document storage

Notion for corporate collaboration

Apple Notes for grocery lists and on-the-go thoughts

Roam Research for when I want to actually store and remember things

txt file per day with a pinch of markdown.

I noticed that I were creating .txt file "new file 1" "new file 2" on desktop. To write down some small things or clear up some commands for command line.

So I realized I will need such a file basically every day and now instead of creating such file ad-hoc, I create one in the morning. When I need to remember something or copy-adjust-paste I do it in that file.

Some days are left empty some days have hundreds of lines.

I don't organize it besides "archiving" each month/year.

Since it is all in single directory I just use VS Code on it and search with it. But I am not tagging or anything just searching plain text, old commands, names of servers functions I might have adjusted. Most of the stuff I can click around for last 7 days and find what I needed.

I have a dual system. For stuff I want to remember, but doesn't need to go into a computer per se (such as things that come up in my 1:1 meetings with my manager, or topics for our meetings), I write them down in a nice, leather bound journal using a pen. By necessity, this stuff is summary points and ideas that I want to keep in my head, and because it requires active listening, it allows me to engage the mental processes that help recall that information later.

For stuff like technical instructions, template snippets (either code or text), and the like, that all goes into a file on the computer, just like a lot of y'all are doing. Basically, if it's something I'd ever feel the need to copy/paste somewhere, it goes in a file.

I don't understand the question. Or at least I don't see what you hope to learn from the responses.

Pretty much every aspect of note-taking is a deeply personal choice based on what you are doing, what the subject is, and what you want the notes to represent in the end. And probably changes over time, of course. You can learn about tools and methodologies but at the end of the day, these are just options to make your note-taking possibly more efficient, they don't help you take better notes, that only comes with experience.

IME you can't be "taught" how to take effective notes any more than you were "taught" to walk or function in society. You just figure it out after a while.

Some time ago I wrote a blog article about the lab notebooks I use.

https://coverclock.blogspot.com/2008/07/daily-organization.h...

org-mode and Git.

I've tried so many systems over the past two and a half decades. I only picked up org-mode last year, for the decade before that it was Markdown in VIM... I absolutely live in VIM.

I love having just plain text files, not a day goes by that I'm not grepping or finding or seding or occasionally even awking through them. I moved from Markdown to org-mode for the collapsible sections, like an outliner. Yes, there are some VIM addons that can do collapsing, but honestly org-mode does it better and I can slowly add other nice org-mode features as I need them. I do have Evil installed, though. The only thing Emacs really is missing out of the box is a decent text editor. ))

Depends on the job and available typing skills; when I do requirements elucidation I usually just write down everything the stakeholders are telling including the questions; I use https://github.com/rochus-keller/CrossLine which lets me structure the text on the fly; after the session I do different summaries which either reference or transclude the outline items generated during the sessions. Also during design meetings I usually write down everything which is easier and almost an automatic process.

I have three types of notes:

- short-term notes are written on paper. I use that when I need to remember something very soon (the same day at most) or when I need to clarify my ideas, so there’s lots of boxes and arrows

- mid-term notes (1 to 2 weeks) I’m still figuring out a system. It’ll be my todo list so I usually write it down in Apple Notes (but it doesn’t support code), or in Obsidian (but it feels wonky, I don’t like how it feels) or in Notion (good so far except for the crappy arrows that show up even on pages without children)

- long term notes are my knowledge base. I try to curate and classify them the best I can in Notion.

I use the CODE and PARA methods from Tiago Forte.

Much of what I'm taking notes on are things I am learning for my job and self improvement. How I use that knowledge, how they might relate to a project I am working on, how they relate to my core values, life goals, or priorities.

I feel strongly that I start with a quote or summary of what I learned. Then I reword it and summarize it in my own words, then I link it to other things I know that resonate with that idea or thought or nugget. Then I look at how to use it in my current projects.

I use EditPadLite because it has a tabbed interface and save my notes as client-name-website.ext-notes.txt. Then when I'm done with the notes, I toss them.

These notes usually consist out of code I want to save for a bit to study it further, bits of CSS I've fiddled with in Developer Tools and still need to implement, or some notes I've written down during the occasional phone call I have. I use it as a second brain, because I can't remember all that stuff anymore now that I'm about to hit 40.

Use Orgzly on the phone. Orgmode/orgzly somehow fits my needs like a glove. I feel like the app is nearly perfect.

I sync the flat files with keybase e2e encrypted git via termux command.

I try to make note taking "pipelines" also - trying to ensure I dont just dump notes on a pile and forget about them but that there is a process/habit/location for me to pick all notes up again later for use. I rearrange/reorg the notes with a view to this pretty regularly.

I shove them all in an archive folder once Im done with them.

I mostly take notes for gamedev:

- I have a Gitlab project in which I make issues + update wikis frequently. Issues are for concrete ideas/tasks. Wikis are for collecting ideas / bookmarks / etc.

- I have a few notebooks with various purposes. One's for practical sketches / problem solving (like math). One is for ideas for the various games I have in my head. One is for visual art.

- I also have a gamedev folder in my iPhone notes just in case. I've started using it less since I can just use Gitlab on my phone.

- markdown

- saved in git

- transformed by pandoc (and some filters)

- for text, trees, list/table data, local and global URLs/references

- using dead-simple tags

But above all: don't use anything to organize your thoughts

You will not figure things out better using outlines or mind-maps or blog entries or ontologies or equations or chats.

Think your thoughts until they are compressed from mud to diamonds.

Then their structure and media will be clear, and the unending task of conveying them to others can begin. You'll find organization is driven not by author but by audience.

Not an answer but could you share some past threads you mentioned, discussing tools people use? I'd love to compare notes, so to speak.

As for me I've got a note for random thoughts, acts as a dumping ground, and other notes titled by categories for organising into later.

The thing with note taking is it's so reflective of how people think, so it's not always easy to adapt exactly to what others suggest. But still worth looking at and getting ideas.

Google Keep for ephemeral and the rest simple files that are sophisticating with years. First some scribbled TXT files in folders, then word to paste images, now markdown+latex (typora + mathpix) with TOCs. I've started linking from one another so perhaps a personal wiki is down the line. My files are pets not cattle, thematic and focused, except one for things I wanted written but not coherently as a whole.

Notebook and pen. No app can beat it for long term notes. If you need to take photos of the pages and save those on a note taking app such as Evernote.

.txt and .md files in a folder I sync with Syncthing, and edit with Sublime Text 3 on my desktop machines, and Editor[1] on my phone. I create a file per topic, e.g., `ruby.md`, `docker.md`, `cooking.md`, and switch quickly between files using Ctrl + P in Sublime Text.

[1] https://billthefarmer.github.io/editor/

I am using Libre Writer. It allows good organization with headers and makes it very easy to navigate. Including images is just paste, inlike writing code in markdown. You can even include videos but I would jot recommend it because the document becomes slower. I always add sources of the note from where they came.

Apple Notes for personal stuff (lists like groceries lists, TODOs, insurance details, bank account numbers, what did I store in my attic, my vehicle registration details …etc) - pretty much anything that I need to recall.

Joplin for work/learning related stuff (organized by topic). For any topic that I work on, I create a page with links, notes, snippets of code …etc.

Most of my notes are in the form of bulleted lists that either:

1) Describe some task that needs to be completed.

2) Describe a set of steps needed to complete some task.

3) Summarize a topic at a higher level.

If I need to write something more descriptive and/or with complex visuals, I usually think of it as writing documentation as opposed to note taking, and use tools such as jupyter notebooks

I structure my notes on a topic as if it were a book.

- There's a table of contents.

- There are prerequisites for each section (links to other sections within the notes).

- There's a terminology section at the bottom has short definitions for all the new terms I should remember (software automatically links each usage of a term to its entry in the terminology section).

Paper notebook on the go. Usually field notes sized that fits in my pocket or shoulder bag. Sometimes a big sketch book size is I “need” more space.

Fleshed our notes go in Tinderbox. 4-5 times a week I’ll journal or condense my thoughts. Not very consistent though - some weeks it’s 1-2 times. Other weeks I write daily or multiple times a day.

Logseq has been great. As an outliner with backlinks, it makes it easy to take notes with minimal effort put into structuring while still being able to find and group related notes. Queries are awesome for filtering todos by subject. Local storage is great for security / privacy. Can't recommend it enough.

Folder with txt documents, tied together with some bash aliases to make note-taking more convenient

I'll ask a bit of a follow-on question which is:

How often do you refer to your old notes?

For myself, I find the act of taking notes to be worthwhile because writing forces me to think in a way that can be clarifying. But, I tend to never look at my notes once taken.

I just use Apple Notes now.

Syncs automatically across devices.

Super easy to share content from each web page or app directly with notes.

Has folders and tags to organize stuff.

They always add new features - like smart folders.

I keep all the random notes there and also write longer essays that I publish on my site.

So everything is in one place.

Somewhat-related discussion from 3-4 days earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32211734

VSCode + markdown files which are linked (Foam).

Zotero for stuff collected from browser.

I scribble stuff down on whatever scraps of paper are to hand the deal with them as and when our throw them out every couple of weeks out so. My todo list is on the ‘things’ app

Did everything, single note.txt, everNote, one-Note, etc. Came back and dropped to Apple Notes for Bookmarks, notes, lists, the full yard.

It just works, everywhere in Apple Ecosystem.

I have too many ideas and too few resources to actually implement them. So I deliberately do not write down my ideas, otherwise I will be distracted easily (I have heavy ADHD and it is very difficult for me to prioritize between ideas to work on).

If some idea is really important, it will come again, and again, and I will have to start doing something about it. Otherwise, it is better to forget it. Just writing something down is the best way for me to never get back to it, I have a lot of ideas written down in Evernote like this, I call it my “cemetery of ideas”.

I have very intricate systems for reminders, documents and events (I have to set up 3-4 reminders before any event, otherwise I’ll happily ignore it). But writing down plain notes never did any good to me.

(tl;dr ADHD sucks)

I take notes in a very similar format to Wikipedia, including the links. Just a lot more concise and with a hierarchy structure

Google Keep. I use it as a personal Twitter feed for ideas. I garden those ideas by adding related ideas over time.

I use the free version of confluence and save random notes there. I use it for work so it is straightforward.

Paper notebook(s). It's always open on my desk, next to my mousepad. I only have to move my hand a few inches from my mouse to pick up the pen and start writing.

Everything goes in there, in chronological order. In the morning I write the date at the top of a page, check my calendar, email, and Slack, and jot down some to-dos for the day.

After that anything goes - meeting notes, brainstorming, quick research, etc. It's not terribly organized or fancy - it doesn't need to be. I just write things down in the order they come up during the day.

Anything that needs to be shared or collaborated with others goes into a Google Doc or some digital form, I take a bit of time to convert my quick notes to something meaningful that will make sense to someone else.

I very rarely need to reference notes older than a couple of weeks. If I do, it usually doesn't take that long to find based on rough date - I have a stack with my old notebooks in a drawer.

I also use BBEdit with a million unsaved documents (well, 175 right now). I use it more as a scratch pad than actual note taking - drafting a longer message or email, manipulating some text I'm moving around, and so on. Nothing that needs to be persisted for long.

google docs + keep, reasonably well curated bookmarks, and especially for work: a pen and post-it notes (a lot). i kanban them all across my monitor and end up with a nice archive that i can dig through for historical context.

I use Beat. Because it’s so fast! Other than that no specific structure.

What kind of notes are you focused on?

Personal projects and ideas?

School notes?

Recording what goes on at a work meeting?

Emacs. Single file on the subject.

Text edit files

IDK if it's what you're looking for but I'll share some of my stuff.

The specifics depend on what I'm doing, but still I find that I return to the same structural patterns a lot, I developed what I call a "Unified Experiencing Template":

https://pastebin.com/hvRutW9u

I use this for notetaking, organizing new learning projects, hobbies, and other contexts.

The Current Position section generally encourages me to move items from the log up into a more structured position of understanding or momentum. This also helps to work around the trap--subjective taxonomy or journal format? You can end up with both and in a lot of cases that's really what I'm looking for.

I have a script that parses files for +crp to help me keep up with whatever I'm working on / thinking about.

I also take notes in the to-do list zone using my Task BATL format (profile) using elements like time estimation, so this format shows up in my notes really often:

    - FF xsc (5m)
        - F-x xsc Hydrate (1m)
        - F-x xsc Eat a pop-tart (1m)
        - F-x xsc Go for a hike (3m, get camera ready)
    - VV xsc (15m)
        - V-/_ xsc Watch some more of the film you checked out on Hoopla (15m) 
    - TT _sc (?)
        - T-/_ _sc Email to schedule the call for Monday
        - T-/_ _sc Plan next 2-3 steps for backup changes 

The first items, FF, are comfort- or body-support items. VV would be items related to ongoing development of personal interests and values. TT would be work or more normal / boring checklist items.

The xsc / _sc indicates whether I've got the next step's time estimated and/or schedule blocked out for the item.

Other note-taking stuff...if I'm taking notes, the format, amount, and organization method also depends on the output-format's (speaker's, presenter's, book's, etc.) psychology and how it relates to my intake-psychology, but that's getting into weird stuff.

If I'm in a hurry I take notes on paper in shorthand or on a digital device in shorthand. l cg f cr would be "oil change for car" etc. My handwriting for this is kind of a mix of Teeline, Gregg, Ford, Japanese, and some of my own stuff.

I also found that sometimes what's needed is just the "expression of information" similar to the expression of feelings. Saving the notes is not so important. What's important is getting it out. So at these times I'll journal by writing shorthand on my lap while sitting, chest while hiking (holding my shoulder bag strap) etc. Similar to Ted Nelson's anywhere-keyboard but without the keyboard. And the notetaking product of this is more like an idea, resolution, or summed-up organization of things.