How I Take (and Organise) My Notes As a Software Engineer

Main recommendation / verdict

Use a hybrid workflow:

• Paper for fast capture and thinking.
• Notion for transactional/project work (content planning, collaborative tracking).
• Obsidian for long-term, personal knowledge storage (your “digital garden”).
• Use Matter and Readwise to collect highlights and funnel them into Obsidian.
• Back up Obsidian (iCloud, GitHub or Obsidian Sync).

Key products / tools (features, pros & cons, use cases)

1. Paper notebooks (Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917)

• Features: squared paper (good for diagrams/flowcharts), physical to-do lists, soft-leather cover preference.
• Pros: low friction, faster capture, encourages taking more notes.
• Cons: requires manual transcription for digital permanence.
• Use case: quick capture, meeting notes, running daily to-do list.

2. Pens / colors

• Use a range of colors to highlight, but in practice often use whatever is handy (e.g., Bic).
• Pen + notebook is preferred for ease and speed.

3. Notability

• Tried digital handwriting on iPad but it reduced note-taking frequency for this user.

4. Notion

• Features: kanban, calendar, multiple views, good mobile app, easy sharing.
• Pros: excellent for content/project tracking and collaborative workflows (YouTube/blog planning).
• Cons: proprietary (data ownership/export is clunky); not ideal for long-term knowledge retention in this workflow.
• Use case: transactional items—content backlogs, schedules, team sharing.

5. Obsidian

• Features: local Markdown files, plugins, cross-platform, graph of content, strong linking.
• Pros: you own your data (readable Markdown); good for permanent notes and an interconnected knowledge base.
• Cons: less polished; requires plugin setup/tinkering; backup responsibility.
• Backup approach: iCloud sync + GitHub backup; Obsidian also offers paid Cloud sync.

6. Matter (noted as “mata” in some subtitles)

• Features: save articles and tweets, expand Twitter threads, collect newsletters (via Gmail/email).
• Pros: centralizes authors/writers and their writings; makes highlights from web content and threads.
• Use case: capture web content and Twitter threads before pushing highlights onward.

7. Readwise

• Features: aggregates highlights from Kindle, physical books, and other sources; sends email summaries.
• Pros: periodic reminders of important highlights; exports and syncs with other apps.
• Integration: syncs highlights into Obsidian (the user’s inbox).

Workflow & organization

• Hybrid capture: write quick notes by hand; later type important notes into Obsidian.
• Two-app split:
  • Notion = transactional / project content.
  • Obsidian = long-term personal knowledge.
• Automation: Matter and Readwise collect highlights and forward them into Obsidian’s inbox for later processing.
• Search & triage flow: inbox → sort into folders / convert to small knowledge notes or archive/later.

Obsidian folder structure (7 folders)

1. Inbox
   • Where incoming highlights/notes land; needs sorting and triage.
2. Projects
   • One folder per active project (site redesigns, courses, etc.).
3. Knowledge
   • Permanent notes / digital garden; no subfolders; notes are small and interconnected; maps of content link related notes.
4. References
   • Comprehensive articles, book summaries, master course notes (later broken into knowledge notes).
5. Archive
   • Keep obsolete but possibly searchable notes here instead of deleting.
6. Extras
   • Attachments, templates, and other support files.
7. Later
   • Useful but not permanent highlights moved out of inbox until needed.

Note-writing style

• Keep permanent notes small (a few paragraphs), not monolithic blog posts.
• Adopt zettelkasten ideas + “Building a Second Brain” principles: atomic, linked notes that are easy to recombine.
• Convert inbox items into small knowledge notes, archive, or move to Later as appropriate.

Comparisons & rationale

• Physical notebooks vs fully digital (iPad/Notability): physical wins for speed and frequency of capture; digital handwriting decreased note-taking for this creator.
• Notion vs Obsidian:
  • Notion: more polished and collaborative — great for planning and team sharing.
  • Obsidian: better for ownership and future-proofing — Markdown files you control.
• Matter vs Instapaper: migrated to Matter because it expands Twitter threads and better handles newsletters and writer-centric feeds.

Pros (overall)

• Hybrid approach maximizes capture speed and long-term value.
• Obsidian provides data ownership and portability via Markdown.
• Notion excels for content/project workflows and sharing.
• Matter + Readwise automation reduces manual collection effort and surfaces memorable highlights.

Cons / caveats

• Maintaining Obsidian requires tinkering and backup discipline.
• Notion’s proprietary nature makes it risky as a single source of truth.
• Manual transcription from paper to Obsidian adds extra work.
• Inbox can grow large; regular triage and automation tuning are required.

Unique points / distinct takeaways

• Uses squared paper notebooks specifically for diagrams; keeps a running physical to-do list that colleagues add to.
• Prefers soft-leather cover notebooks (Moleskine/Leuchtturm1917).
• Keeps transactional content in Notion (plans that are rarely revisited); permanent knowledge goes to Obsidian.
• Emphasizes small, linked “permanent” notes (digital garden) over deep hierarchical subfolders.
• Draws on Building a Second Brain and zettelkasten ideas to shape folder strategy.
• Automations: Matter gathers web/tweet content and newsletters; Readwise aggregates highlights (including physical books) and emails summaries; both sync to Obsidian inbox.
• Backup strategy: use iCloud + GitHub for Obsidian files; Obsidian Sync is an optional paid alternative.

Speakers / viewpoint

• Single presenter: describes a personal workflow, explains tool choices and trade-offs, and demonstrates why a hybrid (paper + digital) setup works best for them.