Where to keep notes

You pick a place for notes once and live with it for years. What matters is not the number of features but three things — notes are easy to find, you do not lose them when you switch services, and you can see how they changed. Here are the options and what we offer.

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In this article

Four approaches#

A paper notebook. Easy to remember, no distractions. Hard to search, cannot be copied and exists in a single copy.

A notes app on your phone. Always at hand, quick for jotting down a thought. Over time it turns into a long feed with no structure, and moving to another app often loses the formatting.

Cloud documents and page builders. Rich formatting, shared editing. The notes live inside the service in its own format.

Plain text files in markdown. A simple format that any editor opens now and in ten years. Structure comes from folders and links. All that is missing is sync and history — and a repository provides both.

How it works on Skillok#

Notes are markdown files in a repository. You can write them right in the browser or in any editor on your computer.

  • Markup: headings, task lists, tables, formulas, diagrams, highlighted code, [[Title]] links between notes, callouts, tags.
  • History: every edit is saved with a date — you see how a thought developed, and you can bring back any version.
  • Order: folders by topic, file search by name inside a repository.
  • Access: a private repository is just for you; a public one is for sharing; an organization is for a team's shared notes.
  • Freedom to leave: download the repository as a ZIP archive or clone it with git.

What is missing: a mobile app (the site is adapted for phones), quick voice notes, search through the text of all notes at once, and real-time co-editing.

How to choose for yourself#

  • You jot down short thoughts on the go — keep the phone app as an "inbox" and once a week move what matters into your main store.
  • You keep study notes, a knowledge base or documentation — choose files with history. The method itself is covered in how to take notes.
  • You work as a team — you need shared access with roles and a way to discuss changes.

Where to start#

Create a private "Notes" repository, put a README with a table of contents in the root and make three folders: "Inbox", "Topics", "Archive". For the first two weeks simply write everything into "Inbox", then sort it by topic — that way the structure grows out of your notes, not out of empty templates. When it grows, read how to run a personal knowledge base.

Try it on your own task

Create a repository — history, issues and pull requests from day one.

Create a repository

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App for study notes Good study notes have to be written, but also reread, extended and found a year later. Plain markdown files with formulas and diagrams, sorted by subject and keeping their edit history, do that job well. Here is how to keep your notes with us. Notion alternative Notion is built from page blocks and databases. Skillok works differently — your notes are plain markdown files in a repository, and every change has a history. If you care about text, order and being able to take everything with you at any moment, this may suit you better. If you need database tables with formulas and real-time co-editing, it will not. Personal knowledge base A personal knowledge base is not an archive of everything you have read. It is a set of your own notes, linked to each other, that you keep coming back to. Here is how to set one up so it works instead of turning into a dump of links. Create your own online course If you have something to explain and want to build a course rather than a sales page, you can start for free. A course on Skillok is a challenge in a repository: stages in order, each with its own check, and the materials themselves are ordinary files with an edit history. Obsidian alternative with sync An Obsidian vault is a folder of markdown files. Put it into a git repository on Skillok and you get sync between devices, the history of every edit and a way to read your notes in the browser — with links between notes, callouts and tags. Platform for tutors A lesson lasts an hour, but learning goes on all week. Skillok covers the time between lessons — materials, homework, checking, and a history of the student's progress. To be clear from the start: there is no interactive whiteboard or video calling, so run the lesson itself in the tool you already use.

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