Note taking and scalability
I enjoy taking notes. It frees up my short- and long time memory so that I only have to remember bits and pieces and know that I can search to find everything else. As such, I've tried various noting solutions over the years, being a staunch user of Evernote for many years before it got slow and starting to fail (weird synchronization issues, slow client ... ).
Wanting to start over, I exported all of my notes (and misc. other files that I could just throw in there, since it mostly worked) to Google Drive where I could search for the data inside them (although the results weren't always pretty). I then tried Microsoft OneNote.
After having used that extensively for the past two years, the client is getting slow and I'm starting to get more and more synchronization issues, tempting me to "just use notepad and a folder system!" But ... that is not as convenient to format and search as a noting app...
Not counting text nodes, I have other things in my OneNote books and sections, such as screen shots, printed PDF- and word-documents. I'm now in a position where I cannot move, export or even delete certain pages from my account containing PDF printouts (having tried the Windows client, the Web client and the iOS one). This has led me to some lessons learned which I am now about to share:
- Keep your noting "solutions" (Notebooks) small; I now archive them (print them as PDF) once a year, only merging / moving over my Reference section (to find it quicker in searches). The exported PDF-documents can still be searched and read, but not edited. They are historic records.
- Don't place PDF documents into OneNote as it will quickly start causing you issues. In Evernote, you can put all sorts of files, including binaries. It's not a good idea (unless, maybe, you use completely separate notebooks).
- If you need to do bulk changes (e.g. you didn't realize not to put PDFs in there), I found it useful to export all the material you DO want to save (I exported PDF-documents of my sections in a year-delimited folder in OneDrive (e.g. OneDrive/Notes/2015/In Progress.pdf, OneDrive/Notes/2015/Architecture.pdf)). Then, close the notebook in your client, go to onenote.com and delete the notebook.
In short, I have found that attractive noting solutions (solutions that offers somewhat rich edit options and offers search) don't tend to be scalable. Or, in other words - they provide excellent features that work, but not if you use them a lot. Therefore, manage your notes to keep your "databases" small by archiving yearly and by not falling for the temptation of putting other stuff in there.
I hope this will save someone time and frustration.
Wanting to start over, I exported all of my notes (and misc. other files that I could just throw in there, since it mostly worked) to Google Drive where I could search for the data inside them (although the results weren't always pretty). I then tried Microsoft OneNote.
After having used that extensively for the past two years, the client is getting slow and I'm starting to get more and more synchronization issues, tempting me to "just use notepad and a folder system!" But ... that is not as convenient to format and search as a noting app...
Not counting text nodes, I have other things in my OneNote books and sections, such as screen shots, printed PDF- and word-documents. I'm now in a position where I cannot move, export or even delete certain pages from my account containing PDF printouts (having tried the Windows client, the Web client and the iOS one). This has led me to some lessons learned which I am now about to share:
- Keep your noting "solutions" (Notebooks) small; I now archive them (print them as PDF) once a year, only merging / moving over my Reference section (to find it quicker in searches). The exported PDF-documents can still be searched and read, but not edited. They are historic records.
- Don't place PDF documents into OneNote as it will quickly start causing you issues. In Evernote, you can put all sorts of files, including binaries. It's not a good idea (unless, maybe, you use completely separate notebooks).
- If you need to do bulk changes (e.g. you didn't realize not to put PDFs in there), I found it useful to export all the material you DO want to save (I exported PDF-documents of my sections in a year-delimited folder in OneDrive (e.g. OneDrive/Notes/2015/In Progress.pdf, OneDrive/Notes/2015/Architecture.pdf)). Then, close the notebook in your client, go to onenote.com and delete the notebook.
In short, I have found that attractive noting solutions (solutions that offers somewhat rich edit options and offers search) don't tend to be scalable. Or, in other words - they provide excellent features that work, but not if you use them a lot. Therefore, manage your notes to keep your "databases" small by archiving yearly and by not falling for the temptation of putting other stuff in there.
I hope this will save someone time and frustration.
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