2026.02.07 - The Great Note Migration

I take a lot of random notes. Ideas mostly. Topics I want to write about. Thoughts on books I'm reading. Plans for the future. All the things most of us think about regularly. So I'm not unique here.

The common problem many of us face involves keeping track of these notes, linking them, and surfacing them when most beneficial. That's why so many note taking and productivity apps exist, right?

I used Evernote back when it launched. I loved it. But it enshittified quickly. I switched to Google Keep, but it wasn't ideal for notes of any length. I tried Notion, but it felt like I was building a wiki.

Then I discovered Roam Research. That was the day I witnessed a new future. A world in which the books I read, the thoughts I'd written down, the quotes I'd recorded could all inform my thinking and future creative endeavors. Links and Backlinks altered by entire concept of note taking, which is unsurprising, given they're the cornerstone of how we navigate networks that are not our brains. I spent years using Roam, but its development began to stall, and other apps introduced new ideas.

I first tried Obsidian around this time, but it was early, and I was underwhelmed by its features.

So I switched to Tana, which was like Roam Research on steroids. It didn't do everything as well, but it introduced enough new features that made up for any shortcomings.

Tana is complex. This is a benefit and a curse. It is capable of almost anything, but that introduces decision fatigue and insecurity. I never feel I'm using it the "right" way. I'm smart enough to know the "right" way is whatever way works for me, but I can never quite find the way that works for me. I loved its flexibility, its lists and kanban boards, its object-oriented nature where supertags could extend other supertags, and its minute detail. Every node is independent. Every node can be drilled into. Every node can be linked to any other node. This all corresponds well with how my brain works. But the interface is not super customizable, and so I'm never totally comfortable using it. Plus, I could never figure out when to reference a node, or copy a node, or tag a node. I could never decide if everything should be on my daily node or if knowledge should move to idea nodes.

For three years I've tried. My notes are as messy and disconnected as ever.

Partly this is my fault, because I fail to do basic daily or weekly maintenance. Linked notes are only useful if you take the time to link and review them. But it's hard to spend a lot of time in an app that you're not totally comfortable in.

I'm writing this post in Tana as we speak, and I want more line spacing.

Along the way, I tried Capacities, because it was a more opinionated Tana with built in supertags. But I honestly felt it was putting obstacles in my way more than it was lending structure. So back to Tana.

As I'm typing this, I received an email about Tana's new AI voice chat, which could be a game changer. I anticipate LLM access to notes being one of the most revolutionary note taking features in the long history of accumulating knowledge.

But it may be a little too late.

Re-enter Obsidian.

It's MD files can be used with Claude, with Notebook LM, with a local LLM installed on my home server. I'm not forever dependent on the quality of Tana's implementation.

Obsidian is private and eternal.

I love a good cloud service. I've been a proponent of cloud storage and services for over a decade. They keep your device lean, your drives clean, and allow quick switching between devices. As someone in technology who has long bounced between new laptops and desktops and tablets and phones, I've always tried to reduce the friction of setting up a new device. Cloud services make the switching cost minimal (even if the financial cost keeps increasing!).

Of course, the cloud providers are becoming less and less trustworthy. They've taken to using our personal files and data in nefarious ways. I'm not necessarily worried about people reading my thoughts or ideas, but I don't like it happening without my direct permission. And I understand, in most cases, there are no humans in the loop. But that's not always true. Even so, I don't need your machines scanning my thoughts to show me better ads. And I don't need you training an AI on my documents because reluctantly agreed to new terms I never read just to use the service I already pay for.

Obsidian strikes all the right boxes. Local first. End-to-end encryption for syncing across devices. A huge community of developers building tools to make it work better. And almost no lock in. All your notes exist in markdown on your local drive, to be used however you desire and with whatever tools you desire. Tana's notes are locked in, and their export tools are not idea. (It's not really their fault, I don't think. A node based system instead of a note based system is inherently harder to export into a coherent file system).

So today I begin the migration. I plan to start small. To learn the tool and build the workflows that work best for me. Over time, I plan to bring in my previous notes where applicable. Fingers crossed.

I'm excited to try herding thoughts again. I hope this is the final migration, and that Obsidian, with all its flexibility, proves the ideal solution.

Stay tuned.