NotePlan - Planning with Notes 4+

Hi to the reader; this app combines the calendar, notes, and to-do checklist in a very flexible manner. You can have 'pages/notes' on a topic, and maintain them over time, co-mingled with related to-dos which are pinned to specific dates, or relate to specific @people. Then you also get a note on a per-day basis. The top of the per-day note contains all the references to this day, and their items and to-dos (backlinks), and then you can set tasks or take notes on the current day as well, and tag and comment them, and the text folds. you can also ?(/i believe, still a bit of a newer user) hashtag the title of folded text, so that it pops up on a certain day, linking it. Fully amazing 'zettelkasten', or knowledge bureau manager. All your notes linked, all your people linked to notes, and those all linked with your calendar.

I'm always surprised at how much information I'm typing into it, unloading my mental stress into that proverbial 'external brain'. With noteplan, have to say, I've found an app that gives me confidence that nothing will be lost. It's plaintext files, so you're not trapped, and you won't be upgrading or changing your calendar or note taker, breaking your system. The app has some rough edges, but I always prefer flexibility over polish - it's good, but will be great. Finally, integration.

Thanks a lot for your review!

Best,
Eduard

Traditional GTD apps have task lists but leave your references, long term goals, and calendar scattered in other places. NotePlan 3's combination of tasks, daily notes, and folder-based notes, with excellent Calendar and Reminders integration, solves this brilliantly. Its handling of tasks goes deeper than mere check lists; tasks can be linked between folder and daily notes and there are views to review All Tasks, Overdue Tasks, etc across the whole library. The daily note, with Calendar and Reminders in the sidebar, nicely lays out a day's activity (there's a Week View as well) and is easily linked to supporting planning or meeting notes. External reference docs can be dragged in from the Finder (images are copied to the library and displayed in place; other file types create a link). I've tried a lot of task managers and NotePlan 3 has replaced them all.

It's great too for capturing thoughts, idea generation, or the basis of a writing workflow. There's a beautiful editor that hides Markdown elements except when selected, great keyboard shortcuts, lightning fast search of the whole library, and a great, easy implementation of Zettelkesten-style back links. NotePlan uses CloudKit for encrypted sync, but the notes themselves are locally stored as plain text files (providing the advantages of both library and files-based apps).

I see the new wave of back-linking "Personal Knowledge Management" apps getting a lot of hype. Some of these have daily notes, some a local file-based library, and some a beautiful editing environment. NotePlan 3 has all these things and (unlike most of them) isn't an icky web app. It's also in active development by a communicative, dedicated, and supportive small developer.

Thanks so much for your review :)

Best,
Eduard

I have been using this app for a year now and I truly don’t know what I would do without it. It is not flashy like a lot of other planners but just logical and matches my intuition for organization. I used to bullet journal but that wasn’t working for me anymore and this was such a natural transition. Also I’ll say that the NotePlan community and the developer are soooo helpful when there are issues or bugs. Nothing but good to say, truly a life saving app!

Thank you for your kind review and for taking the time to write one. I’m very glad to hear you enjoy NotePlan.

If you have any trouble using the app, or if you have any other questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know directly: hello@noteplan.co.

—Eduard