Grades vs. Notes Outline: what kind of person are you in the world of productivity?

Grades vs. Notes Outline

A note is a fragment of text with no hierarchical structure. An outline, on the other hand, is a Sequence of notes with hierarchical structure .

Generally, a note-taking app relies on a good search engine, since the organization of content does not rely on nested structures. It is a universal approach to the organization and that needs no explanation, because every mobile phone comes with a good enough notes app . Everyone has seen (and possibly used) a note-taking app.

If you need to be presented with an outline, it has looks like an index. Its main characteristic is the nodes that define the hierarchy of its content (see Outlinely ):

And, for comparison, a notes app looks like this, displaying a list of non-hierarchical texts (see Bear ):

Author or reader?

For me, notes are often part of a process of authorship. That is, they tend to be more on the active side of the writing process. Outline, on the other hand, is a tool for consumption, for summary, not to be confused with a tool for authorship. Thus, it tends to be on the passive side, being a useful tool for the reader. But, as I said, that's just my view.

Each user should use these tools as they make the most sense for their workflow. In my case, for example, If I am going to expose someone's text, I will possibly make an outline as preparation for the presentation . On the other hand, if I am going to write a text, I will possibly take notes of other texts, while I write my own text.

Along these lines, it is quite unusual to find an outline tool aimed at the public that writes long texts. For example, the Workflowy , a highly acclaimed option for creating outlines, has only two use cases: lists and notes. Or Dynalist , another well-known option, proposes to be an organizer in which you can nest information and connect the dots.

Similarly, outline tool options tend to be a solution for lists, planning, projects, etc. This profile is confirmed by the proposals of the Checkvist and the Moo.do . They almost invariably cover the needs for the elaboration of short texts .

But, back to the notes, the proposal of writing long texts from them is present in great applications. Or Scrivener He is the one who most assumes this mission, as he merges his notes into a larger text. Its layout mirrors precisely this workflow, starting from titles, passing through notes and finally arriving at long text.

Text or all?

As you can see, this is my use of notes and outlines. By the way, it is a very particular use and I have already taken care of the subject in a post in the past:

I am aware that, for people who do not have writing as the main activity of their lives, the great references for notes are the Evernote and the OneNote .

I see Evernote as a repository of your day-to-day information: favorite pages, clipper for later reading, pdfs, and scanned documents in general. The program aims to be that great digital basket , and typed notes are just one species of them. Being a generalist, Evernote is not my option.

OneNote is also not my option because it has a very similar proposal to Evernote. These apps consider notes as any type of media, Especially drawings and pictures . To me that's not important. Here's how OneNote looks:

Conclusion

I take notes when I'm writing something. Although I recognize the power of Bear, I have preferred to take notes directly in the text editor where I will write my own text. My preference is for some editor in markdown, maybe more the iA Writer than any other throughout this year.

I draw up outlines when I'm reading something. For a long time, I used the Dynalist for that and it was a great choice. It is certainly among my favorite programs, especially because of its powerful search. However, more recently, this demand of mine has also been met by pdf annotation tools, such as MarginNote . But that's a subject for another post.

What about you? How do you take notes when reading and writing?