Summary
Why I Switched to Plain Text Notes Instead of Modern Note-Taking Apps
Every few months, a new note-taking app appears, promising a cleaner and smarter way to organize information. Like many people, I found myself repeating the same cycle—trying the latest app, spending time configuring it, and eventually returning to whatever I had been using before.
Ironically, the system that finally lasted was also the simplest.
Today, my entire note-taking setup revolves around a single folder filled with Markdown and plain text files, accompanied by a few lightweight applications that all access the same location.
Its simplicity is exactly what makes it work.
The Features I Thought I Needed
Every New App Seemed Like the Perfect Solution
The number of note-taking apps I’ve experimented with is honestly difficult to admit.
I spent time using Notion, stayed with Obsidian even longer, experimented with Bear, Reflect, and Capacities, and tried numerous open-source alternatives, including Notepad++, AppFlowy, and Joplin.
Each application introduced a feature that initially felt essential—until the excitement faded.
Notion databases were probably the biggest example.
I dedicated an entire weekend to building a relational system for managing article ideas. It worked well for about a week before I found myself writing simple paragraphs in a document again, because that was my actual workflow all along.
Kanban boards followed the same pattern.
Moving cards from one column to another created the feeling of productivity, but rarely contributed meaningful progress.
Templates became another distraction.
I spent more time customizing daily review templates and refining PARA folder structures than I ever spent filling them with useful content.
Obsidian, in particular, introduced another layer of customization through CSS snippets, icon packs, and countless themes. Before long, tweaking the interface began to feel like the project itself.
To be clear, I still use Obsidian today, but once plugins become central to your workflow, the experience can quickly become overwhelming.
Since I already keep the Claude desktop application open throughout most of the day, AI panels integrated into note-taking apps never added much value to my setup.
Meanwhile, I was paying subscription fees for synchronization features on platforms whose exports were often just JSON files that I would never realistically import anywhere else.
The Features I Stopped Missing
I Barely Used Them Anyway
Mobile note-taking turned out to be the weakest part of my workflow.
Most of the ideas I captured on my phone were short fragments that eventually disappeared into an application’s inbox and were never reviewed again.
Now, everything goes into a simple file called inbox.txt, which I process later from my desktop.
Rich content previews were another feature I abandoned.
Instead of embedded previews for YouTube videos or social media posts, I simply paste the URL.
The same applies to web clippers.
Rather than saving entire webpages, I copy only the paragraph that actually matters and ignore everything else.
After working this way for a while, I realized those convenience features weren’t nearly as important as I had once believed.
The Folder Became the Feature
The Applications Are Completely Interchangeable
These days, I simply open one folder, and everything I need is already there.
It isn’t visually impressive, and it certainly doesn’t follow the polished aesthetic of modern productivity software.
I’m perfectly comfortable making that trade-off in exchange for simplicity.
Nearly all of my notes are stored in formats that virtually any computer can read without specialized software.
Markdown files work in almost every text editor available, along with countless applications that aren’t even designed specifically for editing text.
Because of that, there’s never an export process—there was never an import process to begin with.
People often describe future-proofing as trusting a company to remain in business for the next decade.
Plain text has already survived countless note-taking applications that have come and gone, and it’s likely to outlast the ones that exist today.
Backups are equally uncomplicated.
Since everything lives inside a folder, I simply copy it and synchronize it using whichever cloud storage service I prefer.
My Folder Structure Is Intentionally Simple
The truth is, I don’t really have a sophisticated folder hierarchy.
Most of my files live in a relatively flat structure where descriptive filenames do most of the organizational work.
I rely on File Explorer filters for sorting and browsing, use dates within filenames whenever chronological order matters, and apply topic-based prefixes for reference material.
Avoiding deeply nested folder structures has made this system sustainable over the long term.
Searching is equally straightforward.
Whether I use the operating system’s built-in search or ripgrep, it’s usually enough because I remember what I named a file far more reliably than where I would have stored it.
Every Application Works With the Same Files
The primary applications I use are Obsidian, Notepad, and Claude Code.
Obsidian handles reading, linking notes, and visualizing relationships through its graph view.
Windows 11’s Notepad has gradually gained additional functionality while remaining lightweight enough for quick edits, and it even formats Markdown when needed.
Claude Code fills the remaining role by acting as an intelligence layer across my notes.
The important detail is that all three applications read and write the exact same files without requiring any conversion or synchronization layer.
None of them owns my notes.
Claude Code Solved the One Limitation of Plain Text
Turning Simple Files Into a Knowledge System
Claude Code works directly with the same Markdown files used by Obsidian and Notepad.
It doesn’t require plugins, API bridges, or a separate database alongside the files.
The biggest limitation of plain text has always been connecting information across multiple notes.
Questions such as:
- What decision did I make about this project three months ago?
- Which notes mention this topic, and how are they connected?
are difficult to answer with simple keyword searches.
Obsidian can locate matching text, but Claude Code reads the content itself and understands the surrounding context.
It also performs organizational tasks that I rarely want to handle manually.
It can consolidate a week’s worth of inbox notes into properly named files, identify duplicate content, and highlight information I’ve already documented.
Even then, Claude Code doesn’t take ownership of the notes.
The files remain completely tool-agnostic, preserving the long-term flexibility and future-proof nature of the entire system.
Simplicity Turned Out to Be the Better Approach
When I describe my previous setup as “fancy,” I’m simply referring to conventional note-taking applications.
Most of them aren’t overly complicated on their own.
However, compared to a straightforward workflow built entirely around plain text files, they often feel like they’re trying to do far more than necessary.
I’ll probably continue experimenting with new note-taking applications, and I may eventually return to one with a richer feature set.
For actual day-to-day work, though, I don’t find myself missing those extra features.
In the end, the simplest solution proved to be the one that stayed.