I came across Forever ✱ Notes yesterday, which is a simple framework that uses Apple Notes for digital note-taking and knowledge management.
I might experiment for a bit and report back. For those who use Apple Notes, what are your thoughts on this method?
What have you done?!?!! One third of this community will now have to rethink their life choices!!
I kid. But as someone who just a few days ago was rethinking some life choices around apps I have on my phone and computer, this does pop at a good time. I think I’ll go set this up and see how it feels.
This looks interesting, going to give it a shot. I use Apple Notes for personal things and have fewer than 50 haphazardly disorganized notes at the moment.
Thanks for sharing!
Sure! Here’s a more informal version:
I think it’s a super interesting method! It can with so many different apps like Apple Notes, Evernote, and UpNote. It actually reminds me of The Secret Weapon method for Evernote. Basically, it was a productivity hack that combined the Getting Things Done (GTD) system with Evernote’s flexibility, making it easy to organize tasks, notes, and projects all in one place.
Using Apple Notes in a similar way could be a game-changer for staying organized and getting things done."
It’s funny because it’s true
Yes. My first reaction was that it might be easier to set up in some other apps. For example, manually creating 365 pages could be a pain in Apple Notes, and I’m not sure a shortcut could automatically create links between the notes. (I imported a bunch of Markdown to Apple Notes using a shortcut recently. It worked fine, but Apple Notes doesn’t recognise tags in the imported files until you actually go into the note and put a space next to them which triggers the recognition).
In Obsidian, for example, it would be fairly trivial to implement this. What I really like is the idea of having a daily page that persists over the years… so when I do work on 5th January 2027, I can see what I was up to in 2026, 2025…
Always assuming I manage to stick to the same system for more than 6 months 
!
As it is, I’m currently using a simple system where each thought is its own note and using tags to classify them. This makes things much more visible than being hidden in a daily note (although I may go back to using a daily note for ephemeral content).
Sounds like the case with Johnny Decimal for file organisation. Although it is file-based you can apply it to any app that has the concept of folders, and it’s pretty powerful. If what Forever Notes is about is similar, then I guess the learnings can be translated to other note tools.
Very interesting!
The name “Forever Notes” seems much more apt if it’s implemented using an app that stored notes in future-proof, interoperable plaintext files. In the context of Apple Notes with its lock-in and proprietary format, it almost seems like an oxymoron.
Agreed, although there are export tools that can be used to export Apple Notes to text based formats in order to mitigate application lock in.
I export my notes twice a week for backup & it takes less than a minute of my time.
I also export my ANs as plain text on a consistent schedule, both to an iCloud folder and to DEVONthink.
Easy peasy: in your daily note settings change Date Format to MM-DD and forget about the year… you’ll have the same page open next year.
I watched the video and perused the site. It seems to me that one can do almost everything this app does with Apple Notes as is with the exception of the calendar function. The ability to create headings, fold headings, link notes, tag notes, create smart folders, highlight text, add to do lists, and much more seems to cover nearly all of Forever Notes features. I’m probably missing something, but there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to add a layer on top of Apple Notes.
It’s just a predefined structure inside of apple notes using tags, smart folders, and linking. He isn’t adding anything new to Apple Notes, just giving folks a nice pre-thought through structure to start with.
He mentions bullet journaling as an inspiration, and I think it’s useful to think of like that. Bullet Journaling is just writing lists down. Its helpful part, if you find it helpful, is you don’t have to build a structure/habit yourself through trial and error.
And several Shortcuts to get up to speed quickly. This is a very good example of how to adapt a tool to a workflow. If the tool admits this approach, then it’s a good tool.
I just incorporated this method in Obsidian today. Thanks for the instructions.
Update: I’ve implemented this method, except for the journal, in Apple Notes for my personal notes & am very impressed. It provides a structure that was sorely lacking and the method is really easy to put into practice.
Thanks again for sharing this @jaketheo !
I’ve found this structure to be pretty useful as well. I don’t think I’d use it for work, but for my personal stuff the base structure helped corral a bunch of loose links and notes. And made Apple Notes more functional for me, rather than one big Inbox with some folders.
I’ve pseudo set up the journal – just with daily notes for the month of October (creating all the links to make it useful for the whole year is a lot of repetitive linking).
With the shortcuts on my phone for the Home and Today’s note…it’s been very nice. I did not like working with the Daily Notes in Obsidian on my phone, but this structure is very smooth.
Whether I stick with it or not, it’s a pretty clean organizational structure.
Same here, my work notes are in one big text file with org-mode markup where they’ve been for 15+ years. If it ain’t broke…
@jaketheo wondering if you’ve experimented some in the last month and what your thoughts are on Forever ✱ Notes.
In anticipation of Apple Intelligence, I’m slowing onboarding my notetaking to Apple Notes and have found the “Today’s Note” shortcut to be pretty great. I set my action button to it and can easily enter thoughts. I’ve only been at it for a couple of weeks, to buyer beware yada yada.
I only finished implementing this in the past week. My initial thoughts are positive. I appreciate the simplicity with the structure. I no longer worry about “which folder should this go in?” Simply tag or add to a hub note if needed, and you’re done. The smart folders as collections take care of everything.
Here are some examples with my minor modifications:
I keep one folder called “Quick Access.” I couldn’t help myself. But sometimes I just need a note quickly (like my tax file number or bank account info) and I don’t want to go clicking on links in the hub. I just know it’s in this folder at the top.
Also, there is an additional smart folder called Recent, which looks for notes edited within the past day or created within the past 30 days. Often this is useful for project notes.
Example tag structure. Tags that are capitalized are part of Collections. Lowercase tags are topic tags. This is useful because I can find obscure notes I’m looking for that have 2-3 topic tags applied to them.
My ✱ Home central hub. I also keep frequently accessed notes here for quick access. WIP.
Made the toolbar more minimal and removed the icons I don’t use. Makes searching and creating a new note easier.
A few tips:
I deleted about 150 irrelevant notes to make this easier. If this creates apprehension, simply create an archive folder or use Exporter to create a backup.
I use ProNotes for slash commands, Markdown, templates, and command palette search. I turned off the formatting bar because it’s annoyingly in the way. ProNotes is also useful for templates and Forever ✱ Notes system. Create a hub template and anytime you need a new hub note, it’s there.
Alfred workflows help a lot. I use Sean Ballinger’s Search Notes.app with Alfred. A quick cmd + space, type n [search term] and I can find any note in an instant. Although ProNote’s command palette search looks promising.
Looking forward to playing with the system more! ✱
