I'm a compulsive note-taker - first started taking notes in
@Evernote circa 2011, and switched to
@Bear around 2016 when Evernote got too slow (time-to-note and time-to-retrieve got so slow that I found myself taking 5x fewer notes... it felt like my augmented brain was getting dumber).
Since then I've used Bear, and while it's generally nice to use and fast, I've got two main gripes:
1) It's too slow to take notes on desktop (I'd love keyboard shortcuts to open it from anywhere) - I often default to
@Sublime because it's so fast to open (yeah, I'm still using
@Quicksilver as a launcher... I'm a dinosaur) and I love the editor / know lots of keyboard shortcuts. I write in markdown then use a Sublime-to-Bear plugin to create a new Bear note, which is annoying.
2) The backlinking feature is terrible - it's so buried that I find myself creating backlinks by hand right at the top of notes. This means it's hard to create a useful hierarchy.
There are some other gripes, like the lack of version backups (I accidentally deleted a really critical note and there was no recourse), but generally, I like everything else.
I've heard lots of people talk about
@Obsidian, but I've been reluctant to explore it because it seems non-trivial to set up syncing, and I'm dreading making the transition (I never transitioned my Evernote notes due to lots of rich media - audio notes... so my augmented memory is kinda split between pre-2016 and post-2016).
So... should I switch? Is there anything else I should consider?