Note takers by type: architects, gardeners and librarians

[Tamagotchi 46]

From reading the Evernote forum it is apparent that people use Evernote in very different ways. While it is true that each has their own way of doing things are preferences seem to have a lot to do with our personality. Anne-Laure Le Cunff captures this idea in her article. 

How to Choose the Right Note-Taking App by nesslabs.com - https://nesslabs.com/how-to-choose-the-right-note-taking-app

Anne-Laure Le Cunff considers three types of note takers: architects, gardeners and librarians. This is what she means by this.

• "The architect. They enjoy planning, designing processes and frameworks, and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily structure their ideas.
• The gardener. They enjoy exploring, connecting various thoughts together, and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily grow their ideas.
• The librarian. They enjoy collecting, building a catalogue of resources and need a note-taking tool that allows them to easily retrieve their ideas. "

I have made similar observations in recent posts but here is a nice summary from the article. 

• "There is no universally perfect note-taking app, and no note-taking app will do the work for you."
• "Choosing a note-taking app doesn’t have to be a black-and-white type of process. It is likely your use case is at the intersection of several apps, and that you may need to use two or more of them in combination to achieve your goals."

Many work through and identify a core feature set for a note taking app. Many auxiliary functions can be added with integrations. This comes up a lot in this forum. What I think is too often ignored is the importance of personal style. The way we enjoy working that is important as we will get more out of the note taking app that better suits us. We need to try it on to see if it fits. This is the idea behind this article. 

"Because features don’t mean anything when considered in a vacuum, we are going to look at the benefits of certain note-taking apps based on your own note-taking style."

What type are you? 

Do you have more than one of these preferences?

[DTLow 5,698]

I  guess I'm aa Librarian with a touch of Architect

btw  There is a difference between note taking and note storage/organization
         Evernote's core is note storage/organization 

         I use Evernote's integrated editor for basic notes      
         For note-taking, I use the Notability app on my iPad    
         And there's also word processing   
        All documents are stored in Evernote

[aukirk 363]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

btw  There is a difference between note taking and note storage/organization
         Evernote's core is note storage/organization 

         And there's also word processing

That is really well said...   I agree, Evernote is best for storage/organization... there are better tools for capturing notes into Evernote, which for me include emailing, Fastever and saving handwritten notes captured in Goodnotes to Evernote as a PDF.  Then Evernote is used to store in an organized way.  So I guess that makes me a "Librarian"... but through linking notes, creating task lists and setting reminders, there is a lot of "Architect" as well.

[stevetdunn 6]

The nesslabs article is great.  I think I fit naturally into the Librarian mould, but I have played around with Obsidian (gardener) and Notion (architect) for a few months.

I tend to naturally gravitate back to Evernote, and as mentioned, it's really about creation, curation and retrieval.  Evernote does all 3 things well enough for me right now!