I'm selective about what I take notes about and don't fret about tooling. I've used Evernote since 2011 and think about switching from time to time because Eve

I'm selective about what I take notes about and don't fret about tooling. I've used Evernote since 2011 and think about switching from time to time because Evernote is not great. But I use it, and I can search notes going back to 2011. I have packing checklists, travel notes, and post-trip notes from foreign travel and backpacking trips, lists of books and movies that I have and haven't read, a commonplace book of quotes and images, notes about technologies and commands that I wrote for reference, essays I wrote for the sake of clarifying my own thinking, recipes with notes about adjustments and variations I've tried. Organized? Pshhh. Mostly search. I put every note in a notebook, and I have some tags that I use to define collections of notes for particular purposes. Search works for the rest. Oh, and I don't try to make notes about everything I learn. I only have a note if at some point I felt there would be value in working out my thoughts or preserving something for later reference. I also delete things, because when I need to do, say, a git bisect, I create a note to help me remember the commands right now and for the next month or two in case I need it again, but if I run across that note later and I haven't used it in two years, I'll delete it, because if I ever need it again I'll probably find a better resource in twenty seconds using a web search. The most important thing is to be very careful and intentional about thinking of your notes as a product. Sometimes you want to document something very well, very clearly, so you can come back to it later when you've forgotten most of the context, but that's rare. Usually the cost/benefit pushes me to almost always write decent notes (which takes effort) but rarely excellent ones. I think people fall into the trap of being attracted to their notes as something they can be proud of, something they could show off (or imagine showing off.) Then your note-taking habit is vulnerable to all kinds of swings in your mind, changes of taste, changes of interest. Have the discipline to be practical, not proud.