I have listened to this episode twice. I am SO excited about NotePlan! I had never heard of this App before.
I couldn’t believe it when Sparky said he may switch to NotePlan in January 2025. I would have bet that David would buy the next version of the Apple Pro Display XDR before he dumped Obsidian!
Well, this episode cost me money. 
What sold me is the time blocking feature and the overall aesthetics (yes, I’m shallow). I’m still finding my way around, but it’s looking good so far.
I’m always open to finding a better way! 
I wasn’t defending my decision but merely sharing my thoughts on markdown. At one point, I’d “concluded” I needed to use markdown for all of my writing to “future-proof” it, but after encountering the inevitable friction associated with the type of work I do, I changed my mind. For me, the risk/reward assessment landed me on the side of using word processors and Scrivener as my primary tools for writing. Theoretically, I want to “love” markdown, but I have yet to find an editor that minimizes the friction encountered and the rework inevitably required to produce a polished product.
My friend, we are all little specks of insignificance on this great ball rotating around the sun. In the grand scheme of things, your choice of file formats matters less than what you ate for breakfast. Use what makes you happy. Life is short, and since I’m a little depressed this week, also meaningless anyway.
(I’m fine. Sometimes my morbidity gives me perspective. Word docs are a-ok in my book, and I do use Markdown for everything. But I like Markdown; I think it’s fun and fast and geeky and a little weird. All things I like in software.)
My friend, we are all little specks of insignificance on this great ball rotating around the sun … Life is short … also meaningless anyway.
We are all little specks of insignificance
Speak for yourself!
Life is short, also meaningless.
I beg to differ.
This great rotating ball is filled with spectacular wonder, beauty, and purpose. While all of creation and everyone in it suffers to one degree or another (for reasons that I’ll not elaborate on here as it would be inappropriate for this forum), each person and thing in creation, including each of us, no matter our circumstances, failures, or successes, is endued with design and purpose. And the apex of that design and purpose are people, created to comprehend this world, cultivate it, steward it, and build civilizations and cultures. All of us experience depression at one time or another; sadly, some live with chronic depression. Nevertheless, each life has eternal significance and meaning independent of its external circumstances and achievements or lack thereof, and this temporary life on this great rotating ball is not the end of any of us.
Sometimes my morbidity gives me perspective.
That is to be expected, even welcomed; perspective is a blessing as it can lead to wisdom. I think our morbidity and mortality are designed to give us the wisdom not to orient our lives, values, and hopes exclusively on this life but also in light of the next. Solomon says, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” By “under the sun,” he means everything done exclusively in view of this life, unless connected to the next, is indeed vanity. “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten." But, lives lived in light of eternity have eternal and deep meaning and significance. If this is all there is, life is ultimately meaningless. Fortunately, this is not all there is.
As to file formats, they may mean more than my food choice for breakfast, but perhaps not much more!
I appreciate you both! Truly, I’m fine. I’ve had chronic depression on and off since I was a kid. 30 years on, I generally know how to manage it, but once in a while, it suddenly grants Solomon-like perspective on file formats and the longevity of our digital detritus.
Cheers!
Speaking of life being short 
:
Wisdom of Ecclesiastes strikes every man.
Again, I appreciate y’all.
To get back to what @Bmosbacker is saying here, one advantage we don’t talk about is how every Word doc is its own file. This is true for Markdown too, but apps like NotePlan and Obsidian want to handle all your plain text. Word docs live anywhere in your file system, and that’s our mental construction of them.
You could put plain text files anywhere in your file system, but apps like NotePlan centralize those plain text files and turn them into something else, arguably making them better. So there might be some FOMO if you have projects and resources living all over your file system, and just want to store your files there.
For me, if I were a typical executive who needed rich text, some spreadsheets, and maybe the occasional presentation, I’d be considering only the MS suite, Google’s suite, or Apple’s suite. Markdown wouldn’t even be part of the equation. And that would probably suit me much better.
Most of us don’t live in that realm. Perhaps @Bmosbacker does? And that’s great. Stick with the MS suite! Especially if it works with your mental model for the file system.
For me, I’m a designer and front-end developer. I either think in Figma or monospace. That makes markdown a perfect extension for how I work, and it makes NotePlan pretty darn attractive.
Also, NotePlan is really great, folks. If you’re reading this and haven’t tried it, unless your needs are esoteric, you’re missing out.
I probably shouldn’t ask this question as I don’t want jump down an app rabbit hole, but here goes. I tried NotePlan a year or so ago. It is a beautiful app, but I found trying to manage tasks in NP with Reminders confusing. Do you manage project tasks using NP’s integration with Reminders?
Interesting … I tried this, but the only options appeared to be search for what I typed, create a new note with my text as the title, or to prompt the AI with the text. How did you get it to give you the option to add the typed text to today’s note?
Not original requestor but I have been using NotePlan alongside Reminders. When I first started using NotePlan a couple of years ago, I just used it for tracking my projects and tasks and meetings, etc. for work. I handled my personal tasks in Things or Reminders…
From a work perspective, L liked the way NotePlan handled daily notes and separate project notes with cross links. So, it made sense to put all my projects and tasks in it. Beforehand I had been using Agenda for project notes and Things for tasks. But why use two apps if I could use one. And it didn’t make sense to continue using Things alongside NotePlan. So I made the switch. Since then NotePlan has gotten better at handling projects and tasks.
So much so, that when my professional circumstances changed, I decided to move my entire life project management to NotePlan, and retire Things.
I realized that one of the key foundations of NotePlan (timeframes like daily, weekly, etc.) was how I wanted to lead my entire life. So now I use NotePlan for all goal planning and review, all project planning and review, and MOST of my tasks (especially associated with my projects and routines).
I say most because I do still use Reminders for those simple things that I want to be reminded of. Or those things that I need to share with my wife. Things such as errand, grocery lists, and medication reminders. While I could put these in NotePlan, they work so well in Reminders, especially with my Apple Watch. So, why not use it too. Especially since I can see them, and create them, and manage them from NotePlab if I want to.
So, I find using the two apps together to be very handy and useful. And they don’t overlap in the tasks I assign to each.
You probably know that you can view your reminders within Noteplan, via the filters view, where you can check them off. The Reminder entry can be dragged into the daily calendar note, or any other note.
I’m going to sound slightly hypocritical here, but here goes: I like Noteplan a lot, but I don’t use it. I have some esoteric needs that NotePlan doesn’t work for, but Obsidian does (block references), and I don’t need all the task features for my workflow.
I do use plain text, though. I loosely follow PARA, with some Resource folders inside Projects as well. I also have a top-level Goals folder where I put in annual and quarterly goals, etc. Only for current/upcoming years or quarters.
Once a week, I review all the outstanding projects and goals and make sure it’s up to date. Then I dump only the next actions into Omnifocus. I flag anything I need to get done in the next week, add hard due dates where necessary, and move on with life.
Basically, standard project management, stripped of all the corporate software garbage. Took me years to simplify it down to this level, especially since I’ve never had a “real job” and have always freelanced — had to learn from the outside how corps manage work, then adopted what I like for my needs.
This way, everything lives in plain text. I could pretty easily move into NotePlan if I wanted to, but I’m happy where I am.
Yes, I do do. I love the filter feature for seeing all kinds of views including Reminders.
Thanks for the helpful and thorough reply. Your approach is interesting and probably common. My approach to project, task, and note management has been the opposite.
I manage my projects and tasks in a task manager (Reminders) and link corresponding notes (Apple Notes) to the appropriate project or task within Reminders.
I’ve never found a daily note to be useful, which is probably a deficiency on my part. Instead of a daily note, I use the Today filter in Reminders for the things I must do today and the 1 Week filter for the upcoming week.
I’ve been testing out NotePlan since listening to this episode, and one relatively minor feature that stands out is the distinction between checklist items and tasks (referred to as ‘todos’ in the app). This distinction is really useful—I realized that I have many checklist items in OmniFocus that are, in a sense, cluttering up the app. NotePlan seems like a good place to move those items, along with managing projects, time blocking, and other productivity workflows.
I do, but instead of an “occasional” presentation, I have many presentations, sometimes four a week.
