I like the look of Bear but would have to tag over 1000 notes in Evernote to make it work for me. I’m curious they don’t have folders or groups—-have I missed something?
Bear organizes notes with hashtags – folders are not part of its design. The tags are sort of like folders, but a note in Bear with multiple hashtags appears in multiple hashtag groups – a feature some people like and others do not.
For what it’s worth – DEVONthink can be used the same way as Bear – all the notes in one “folder” and replicated to multiple tag groups.
Katie
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I was a long time Evernote person but moved to DEVONThink about a year ago (maybe a bit more).
I liked Evernote but had two problems… It’s Human Interface was quirky (for me) and although it was easy to put lots of different things into it, it was hard to get useful things out. I once opined on an Evernote forum that I would just like to get plain TEXT of a note out easily — and people jumped all over me asking why I would ever want to do that. That was the beginning of the end.
I like DT and find it easy to use (after some initial skittishness). It allows me to organize things the way I want and find things easily.
The biggest issue I have (sort of an issue) is it is powerful and I keep feeling like I am not using it to its fullest. It is like having your own nuclear power plant in the basement and sitting around all the time thinking about how you can probably do more than having a bigger light bulb in your desk lamp.
But that being said, it works for me. 
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Thanks for bringing this topic forward, it is something I wanted to do, but couldn’t find the words 
If there has been one big struggle for me, it’s this topic. I have tried numerous software to find the “one that works for me.” I have been bouncing between Eagle Filer and Notebooks, simply because it has sort of worked for me. I love Eagle Filer on the MacOS, but there is no iOS equivalent, so I have to remember the “hack”. With Notebooks, I’m just not convinced of the focus of the app, even though I bought and paid for the iOS and MacOS versions. I have access to an education version of Notion, but just can’t wrap my head around the use of the product.
In the past, I used DT Pro and may reconsider a move to version 3 after reading this post.
Following this thread for more great MPU dialog on the subject.
The struggle is real…
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Exactly. The more I work with DEVONThink the more layers of power I reveal. Same thing is happening in Scrivener and in Omnifocus. To me that’s the sign of a good app for me.
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What area of history do you specialize in?
I’ve tried to convert to DevonThink a few times but it never really clicked for me. I use Drafts for most thinking/writing/note-taking, but I use it as a long term store rather than just a starting place or temporary holding space (which it was originally marketed as). I’m curious about Roam, but I’ve hesitated thus far simply because it’s currently web only. With Roam in mind, I built a couple of simple cross-linking actions for Drafts; the support for this kind of customisation is one of the reasons I love Drafts so much!
Other than that, I use Evernote as a personal archive, with Dropbox for most other docs. And Trello… wow. I’ve known about Trello for years, but came back to it again just in the past week or so, and have been pleasantly surprised by how well it lends itself to managing bodies of knowledge/thinking.
Regionally: the Americas; Chronologically: 19th and 20th centuries; Theme Specialty: Race/Racism, US Foreign Policy, historical memory.
That sounds like an interesting subject. The 19th Century through, say, World War I was similar to today – a lot of technology coming at people fast and changing lives rapidly.
I’ve been playing with Notion recently and while it’s not a polished app, it definitely has the most potential. I am planning on using Notion has a “Portal” document management because of the toggle feature where I can actually better organize my notes compared to Evernote. While evernote’s capturing system is superior (better web clipper and share functions on iOS and scannable), i am hoping Notion will catch up to it.
Totally agree. I continue to use Evernote for everything from recipes to Wine Spectator ratings to manuals etc. Is it perfect - no but it gets the job done and i am not willing to spend the time converting it over and learning a new system. Using OmniFocus more and more. Still trying to figure out how to set up a Critical Path on projects like a rental property rehab
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“Still trying to figure out how to set up a Critical Path on projects like a rental property rehab”
Really? Critical Path is a specific thing in project scheduling and OmniFocus doesn’t do it. For your rental property rehab, if you wish to do Critical Path Planning (which probably is a good idea given that there is probably a significant amount of money and risk involved), look at OmniPlan or Microsoft Project. Oracle’s Primavera certainly over the top for you. If you are looking for tools to keep track of “stuff” related to a project OmniFocus surely will work (single user only). But OmniFocus not a “Critical Path” tool.
I recently decided to leave Evernote. It is a work in progress but my notes go into Bear. My podcast research goes into Pocket and I link to to those articles in Bear.
I still need to find a repository for PDFs and scans of statements and business receipts. I may do this on my Mac with Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, and a scanning app.