There's a certain kind of productivity trap where you spend more time evaluating tools than actually using them. I fell into it for years — Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Bear, Craft, back to Notion.
The problem wasn't the apps. They're all genuinely good. The problem was that each one had opinions about structure, and I kept fighting those opinions. Every new tool arrived with a new promise: backlinks, databases, block editing, graph views, templates, dashboards. Each promise created another surface to maintain.
Eventually I realized my actual needs were boring:
- write notes quickly
- find them later
- keep them for years
- move them between devices
- avoid lock-in
Plain text solves those needs with almost no ceremony.
The simplest stack that works
Now everything lives in .md files in a single folder synced with Syncthing. My editor is micro. My search is rg (ripgrep). My file manager is the terminal.
# Find any note containing a phrase
rg "quiet web" ~/notes/
# List recent notes
ls -lt ~/notes/ | head -20
That's it. That's the whole system.
The folder structure is intentionally shallow. I use a few broad directories like work, ideas, reading, and personal, but I avoid deep nesting. If a note needs to be found, search should find it. The system works because search is fast enough that organization can stay light.
File names do most of the work:
2026-02-18-rss-notes.md
project-endless-seo-checklist.md
book-how-buildings-learn.md
idea-local-first-sync.md
Dates help for logs and meetings. Descriptive names help for everything else.
What you gain
Portability. Open any note in any editor, on any OS, in 10 years. The files will still be readable. I can't say the same about my Notion exports from 2021.
Speed. Ripgrep searching 4,000 notes is faster than any app's built-in search. Meaningfully faster. You stop hesitating before searching.
Ownership. The files are on my machine. They sync to two other machines I own. There is no company that can shut down my notes.
Composability. Plain text works with everything. You can grep it, back it up, diff it, version it with Git, convert it to HTML, publish it, encrypt it, or zip it into an archive. You are not waiting for a vendor to expose an export feature.
Calm. A text file has almost no interface. There are no badges, sidebars, AI prompts, template galleries, or upgrade banners. That makes writing feel less like operating software and more like thinking.
What you lose
Honestly? Not much. The visual polish of a nice app, sure. But I've noticed I spend more time writing and less time reorganizing when everything is flat files.
The urge to restructure your system goes away when there's nothing to restructure.
You do lose some collaboration features. Shared workspaces, comments, permissions, and live multiplayer editing are where polished apps still shine. If your notes are mainly team documents, plain text may be too bare.
You also lose rich embeds. A markdown file can link to a spreadsheet or image, but it will not feel like a fully designed dashboard. That is a tradeoff, not a bug. The whole point is to keep the system from turning into another thing to manage.
How to make plain text useful
The mistake is trying to recreate a productivity app inside plain files. Don't build a fragile hierarchy of folders, tags, templates, and rituals. Start with a few conventions:
- use Markdown for headings and links
- use dates for logs and recurring notes
- use descriptive filenames
- keep one inbox file for quick capture
- search before reorganizing
If a note becomes important, clean it up later. Most notes do not need architecture. They need to exist.
Backup matters
Plain text is durable, but only if you back it up. A good setup has at least three copies: your main machine, another synced device, and a backup location. That backup can be an external drive, encrypted cloud storage, or a private Git repository.
The point is not to become paranoid. The point is to make your notes boringly recoverable.
Starting small
If you're curious, don't move everything at once. Pick one category — meeting notes, or reading notes — and keep them as plain .md files for a month. See if you miss the app.
Try using plain text for:
- daily notes
- project scratchpads
- article drafts
- reading highlights
- meeting notes
- personal checklists
After a month, ask a simple question: did the system disappear into the background? If yes, that is the win. The best note-taking system is not the one with the most features. It is the one that lets you keep thinking.
Most people don't miss the app as much as they expected.