Notetaking tools

There are a lot of note-taking apps out there. And as with most recommendations, you have to figure out what works for you. Bonus: If you want to ensure that the rest of your productivity system is optimized as well, you might want to check out these guides:. Read on to find out which tool is the right one for you, your devices, and your price range! The Top 11 Note-Taking Apps of 1.

Notion has a template engine that allows you to turn pretty much anything into an easily-duplicated template, including a multi-layered collection of pages. It also has great media embedding and previewing tools, including a gallery view for photos and videos. Powerful tables. Nested hierarchical organization.

But Notion does this. You can even turn a set of text into a dropdown so you can roll them up when you want non-immediate information out of the way. Hybrid editor. Notion lets you write in Markdown or use normal keyboard shortcuts and UI elements to format your text. Free personal accounts.

Notion used to be fairly expensive, and it still can be for team plans. However, the Personal plan recently became completely free. Cons: Quirks in the editor due to the block system. Every paragraph is a block, and each block can be moved around, changed into different elements, labeled, and colored. No offline support. Currently, you need to have an internet connection to use Notion.

Productivity Essentials: Create a System That Works With a proper productivity system, nothing ever slips through the cracks. Bear bills itself as an app that you can use for everything from basic notes to full-on essays. The app has an advanced markdown mode which lets you edit and revise thoroughly. You can use FaceID to password protect those notes. With Google Keep, notes can be organized with labels or colors, and can be pinned to the top for easy access.

You can also collaborate on a note in real-time once they are shared with others. Notes can be given labels, pinned to the top, given a color, paired with reminders and collaborated on in real time.

Additionally it also offers speech-to-text functionality so you can dictate notes on the go rather than have to write. There you have it. Your email address will not be published. Save my name and email in this browser for future comments. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.

Learn how your comment data is processed. Every new year brings the opportunity to realign on long-term business goals. But short-term goals are where teams perform their best work. Think about it this way: When achieved consistently, strategic and impactful short-term goals move the needle towards the completion of long-term goals. It sounds logical, yet without being intentional about regularly setting short-term. Do you know how to delegate work?

Delegating is a flexible ability for some, but a sore subject for others. But whether or not you realize it, delegating is of the utmost importance in the workplace. A Gallup poll noted that when CEOs with a high talent for delegation, their companies post a three-year. If you understand the value of creativity in your workplace, your team is lucky to have you.

The Best Note Taking Apps On The Market When it comes to taking notes digitally, finding yourself an excellent note taking app is critical for logging next steps and planning overall strategy.

For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. With so many apps to consider, we had some pretty strict criteria for what made a great notes app.

First, the apps had to be good at what they claimed to do. This sounds like an easy bar to clear, but you'd be surprised at how many apps fell short. Not every note-taking app needs to have features like image-to-text conversion or stylus support, but if it boasted about them, they had to be well-executed and nice to use.

Second, all the note-taking apps had to be quick and easy to use. The real competition here wasn't other note-taking apps, but a pen and scrap of paper. If it wasn't almost as convenient to open a notes app and create a quick note as it was to reach across my desk for a Moleskine and a pen, it didn't make the cut.

This rule also extended to other features: editing and sorting notes had to feel seamless and natural, rather than require a battle with a horrible user interface. Similarly, the biggest reason to have a notes app instead of a notebook is that you can access it from anywhere on any device at any time , whether you're at your desk at work, chilling on your couch at home, or flying coast-to-coast.

At a minimum, we required apps to be available on one desktop and one mobile platform, and to have some kind of offline functionality. You can't be locked out of your notebook because you don't have Wi-Fi. Finally, we had the value for money test. At Zapier, we love a good free app, but with things as permanent as notes, that has to be balanced against the likelihood of the service surviving the next few years and being able to offer server-based features like syncing.

Many of the best apps charge a reasonable subscription price, and as long as it was warranted by the features offered, that was no barrier to inclusion.

Microsoft OneNote is a free and full-featured note-taking app. It's Microsoft's answer to Evernote the next app on this list , though without the need for a monthly subscription. OneNote is incredibly freeform when it comes to taking notes. Each Notebook is modeled off a ringbinder, so it's divided into sections with subsections called pages. And each page is basically a canvas where you can add any kind of note you like, anywhere you want.

This means you can drag and drop in an image, click anywhere to add some text notes beside it, and if your computer supports a stylus, scribble a mustache on everyone in the photo. Otherwise you can draw one on with your trackpad, but it'll be less stylish. It feels like a solution purpose-built for students and anyone else who has to take long, discursive notes about something, rather than people looking for a digital notebook to collect short snippets and random ideas.

I'd struggle to call any of Microsoft's apps intuitive, but OneNote is familiar. The ribbon at the top of the app has five tabs: Home , which has all the basic formatting tools; Insert, which lets you attach files, images, audio recordings, and everything else; Draw , which gives you all the free drawing and highlighting tools; View , which lets you navigate the document and change how things look; and, finally, Tell Me , which is the help function.

If you've used any version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in the last decade, you'll be right at home. In terms of pricing, although OneNote is free, it uses your OneDrive storage. You get 5GB included, which is more than enough for most people.

But if you use OneDrive to store your photos, or save a lot of image and audio notes, you might hit against that limit. With OneNote's Zapier integration , you can automate OneNote to eliminate the hassle of moving information between apps.

For example, Zapier can automatically create new notes in OneNote whenever you have a new task, note, or calendar event in another app. Evernote and OneNote are the frontrunners in the note-taking category. Take a look at how they stack up in our Evernote vs. OneNote showdown. It's impossible to talk about note-taking apps without mentioning Evernote , so it should be no surprise to see it on this list.

It's one of the most powerful options around and can handle notes in almost any format you want. You can add text notes, audio clips, images, PDF documents, scanned handwritten pages, Slack conversations, emails, websites, and anything else you can think of.

If you're the kind of person who's as likely to scribble the outline to a best-seller on the back of a napkin as you are to save your shopping list as a voice memo, Evernote is great: it gives you one safe place to throw everything. But Evernote isn't just a dumping ground. It's designed so you can easily sort and organize your notes. If you already have some tags set up, they'll be auto-suggested; otherwise, you can type whatever you want and hit Enter.

In the sidebar, click Tags to see a searchable list of every tag you've used. It's a really fast way to sort notes as you create them, without having to worry about putting every note perfectly in its place. Of course, later on, you can dive back in and arrange all your notes into meticulously sorted notebooks.

In that case, click Notebooks in the sidebar and then New Notebook. Give it a name and you'll be able to drag and drop notes from anywhere else in Evernote into it.

Alternatively, you can right-click on a note, click Move , and then select your chosen notebook. Evernote takes things a step further with its search functionality. If you upload an image of a sheet of paper, a business card, a menu, a sign, or anything else with text, Evernote automatically processes the image to make it more readable—and then processes the text to make it searchable. So, if you add a photo of your favorite pancake recipe, you'll be able to search for it as if it's a text note you typed yourself.

Evernote even works with handwritten notes, though with the huge caveat that your writing must be neat enough that a computer can read it. Mine, sadly, is not. It's similar with PDFs and other documents you upload—if you have a Premium Evernote subscription, the text is searchable throughout the app. Evernote's free plan doesn't make this list. It's limited to two devices, and you can't save notes for offline access on mobile. Microsoft OneNote is a significantly better free option, if you never intend to upgrade to a paid plan.

However, if you're looking for the ultimate everything notebook and don't mind the monthly fee, then Evernote is the app for you. Evernote integrates with Zapier , letting you automate your note-taking. For example, you can automatically create tasks from Evernote reminders, or create new notes for calendar events.

If you decide on Evernote, check out 30 tips for Evernote to make the most of your notes. And take a look at 5 hidden Evernote features.

If you're firmly entrenched in Apple's ecosystem, you don't have to look too far for a great, free note-taking app. Apple Notes variously called Notes or iCloud Notes, depending on how you're accessing it is built into macOS and iOS, and can also be used through your browser.

Just head to icloud. It's a nice bonus that keeps your notes from being totally locked into your Apple devices, provided you have enough iCloud space to store everything.