For this reason, I think it is good that there is renewed interest in the Zettelkasten technique and it is worth watching that Roam, RemNote and Obsidian space. I also found the outlining, which Scrivener, Roam and RemNote implement so well, is something non-fancy and yet useful. I have also not managed (yet) to generate through backlinks, or these graphs in Roam and Obsidian something exciting… but as we realise here, simplicity and hence good design for it, is important. In some ways, I have found mirror nodes combined with the forced hierarchical representation of notes in an outline to be more useful than free-associative bi-directional wiki links for the reasons mentioned above. Mirror nodes are a bit like replicants in DevonThink, where a single note can appear in multiple places in the Workflowy outline, but all appearances are really the same note. Workflowy is an extremely simple tool that gets out of my way, and they are adding some interesting new bits of functionality that appear to be inspired by some of the newer tools (mirror nodes, kanban boards, fractal boards, bi-directional links). When I’ve tried to take notes in DevonThink, I find that all the configuration options lead me to spend more time twiddling knobs, adjusting options, and setting up workflows than actually using the tool. I have used it on and off for perhaps a decade or more and always return to it for its simplicity. These days, I use Workflowy for my note-taking as well as task management. In the past I have tried to invent ways of getting to information from several different directions, but I found that merely created friction, uncertainty, and confusion. I have come to realise that for my purposes, the simpler the solution, the better. Maybe that is just how my brain works, or just how I’ve been taught to point also resonates with me strongly: On the other hand, I have a feeling that making coherent meaning out of “atomic notes” requires us to order them in some kind of sequential, perhaps hierarchical way. On the one hand, the non-linear free-associative graph of notes that one can build in these tools is very seductive, and in some ways they better reflect how the human brain works than a hierarchical outliner, for example. I’ve been intrigued by the Zettelkasten technique, by Andy Matuschak’s evergreen notes, and the growing popularity of Roam Research. I found that I could easily jot short thoughts into Scrivener before figuring out where they fit, pulling them out into Scapple to find new connections, pulling them back into Scrivener to find a place for them, re-arranging them, slicing them up, re-combining, etc. I found Scrivener to be a fantastic tool for long form writing and organizing notes into a form that is necessarily sequential, linear, and hierarchical. I wrote my PhD dissertation using Scrivener (alongside Scapple for thinking through connections and DevonThink for storing primary source material). I’ve looked at many of these tools and have wanted to compare them for some time but haven’t gotten around to organizing my thoughts, which you did quite nicely.

Scapple and scrivener integration