I've always struggled with learning complex concepts, relying heavily on my memory throughout school to pass exams without truly understanding the material. Now, with about five years of experience in a sysadmin role and several certifications under my belt, I've realized that memorization alone isn't enough, especially when I need to communicate these concepts clearly to clients and colleagues. Over the past couple of years, I've been working on improving my note-taking skills and experimenting with various apps like Obsidian, Notion, OneNote, and Word. However, I've encountered some frustrating issues: messy exports in Obsidian, concerns about data loss in Notion, complications with OneNote's storage solutions, and messy organization in Word. I'm eager to hear what methods and tools you all use for taking notes, documenting processes, and keeping everything organized and easy to back up!
1 Answer
Honestly, I stick to good old pen and paper for my notes. After that, I create detailed Word docs with step-by-step instructions for tasks, making it easy for anyone to follow along, even future me! An unexpected winner for me is using Excel—it's surprisingly effective. You can save notes per project, create new sheets for different phases, and incorporate pics and diagrams directly into the sheets. It's way easier to manage than you'd think!
But if your Excel file gets too large, you might face issues opening it later! It's a risk I wouldn't want to take.