I have been taking my notes digitally for about so long as I can bear in mind. In that point, I’ve gone by means of loads of note-taking apps. At first, it was OneNote and Home windows 11’s sticky notes, then Notion, and when that did not work out, I switched to AFFiNE. At this level, I’ve acquired half a decade’s value of notes scattered throughout completely different apps, and organizing them has turned out to be an even bigger activity than I imagined.
Once I ditched Notion for AFFiNE, I solely carried ahead related notes. It wasn’t a full reorganization, however it did reduce down the muddle. Now that muddle has regrown, however this time I’ve Claude Code to assist me manage it.
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No app was going to repair my notes
Why higher instruments gained’t resolve a messy system
Observe-taking apps, whether or not it is one thing so simple as Sticky Notes or extra difficult instruments like Notion, Obsidian, or AFFiNE, provide you with a number of choices for a way you wish to manage your notes. They’re nice at serving to you write notes, however horrible at making sense of them, not less than till you manually step in and manage all the things.
Each app I’ve tried has a ton of group options. I am speaking folders, tags, search bars, and even AI help with the implied promise that utilizing these options persistently will show you how to keep on high of your notes. However if you happen to’re like me and deal with your notes app as a dumping floor on your ideas, there’s not a lot the app itself can do that will help you out.
One other drawback is that notes are private. A folder known as “article concepts” means nothing to an algorithm, however it means quite a bit to me. Getting worth out of that folder requires somebody, or one thing, to research what it means and manage it accordingly. Fortunately, AI assistants reminiscent of Claude Code are excellent for the job.
OS
Home windows, macOS, Linux
Developer
Toeverything
Worth mannequin
Free, Open-source
AFFiNE is a workspace with absolutely merged docs, whiteboards, and databases.
Getting the information prepared issues
Cleansing and structuring years of notes earlier than anything
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
You may’t simply begin chatting with Claude and anticipate it to do all the things for you. Relying on how in depth your notes are, there is a first rate quantity of legwork required to gather all the things in a single place so Claude can simply entry and reorganize what’s wanted. Fortunately, I take advantage of AFFiNE, which saves notes regionally on my disk, which means I can simply copy AFFiNE’s knowledge directories and dump them in a folder for Claude to begin working with. You may as well select to export particular person pages as Markdown or PDF recordsdata if you’d like.
This strategy not solely helps provide you with a backup in case Claude messes one thing up, it additionally offers you the prospect to gather all of your notes in a single place. My two most continuously used observe apps are Sticky Notes on Home windows 11 and AFFiNE. AFFiNE’s supply Markdown recordsdata have been simple to search out, however Sticky Notes may be tough. Ideally, you are alleged to discover a plum.sqlite file containing all of your notes on the following path:
C:UserspercentUSERNAMEpercentAppDataLocalPackagesMicrosoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_8wekyb3d8bbweLocalState
Nevertheless, that folder didn’t exist on my Home windows 11 set up. So I went across the laborious method and manually copied and pasted every sticky observe right into a textual content file, which was promptly moved into the identical folder as my AFFiNE Markdown recordsdata.
Organizing my notes with Claude Code
Turning chaos into one thing truly searchable
Earlier than you begin organizing notes, you are going to need to obtain Claude’s desktop or terminal apps. Each work tremendous, however I like to recommend you select the terminal model for duties that require direct file manipulation. On Home windows, you may set up Claude Code terminal with a single PowerShell command:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/set up.cmd -o set up.cmd && set up.cmd && del set up.cmd
Claude requires Git for Home windows to trace adjustments to recordsdata. Moreover, you will have so as to add its set up listing to the Home windows PATH atmosphere variable to launch Claude Code from any listing.
As soon as executed, you can begin Claude Code in any listing by opening a Home windows Terminal window and typing claude. You may be prompted to log in along with your Claude account to complete setup.
After Claude Code is up and operating, I began by asking it to research the folder it was in. It ought to have the ability to perceive that it is operating in a neighborhood app knowledge listing on your note-taking app. I did this simply to have extra management over the group course of and to raised see what Claude is doing. This course of may take some time, and Claude Code may repeatedly ask your permission to put in mandatory instruments and create further recordsdata, so do not go away your terminal unattended.
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
In my case, Claude ended up creating a number of small reader scripts to entry the SQLite database that AFFiNE makes use of to retailer its knowledge. As soon as it went by means of the database, it routinely cleaned up any scripts it made and offered a five-phase guidelines for organizing my notes.
Claude got here up with a relatively versatile to-do record for me, however if you’d like it to go in a distinct path, now could be your probability to inform the AI mannequin what to do. As soon as executed, ask it to energy by means of the to-do record, and it’s best to have a totally organized assortment of notes. It’s going to even ask you follow-up questions because it’s organizing your notes, reminiscent of whether or not you wish to hold sure recordsdata or not.
Screenshot by Yadullah Abidi | No Attribution Required.
As a bonus, as soon as the group course of is full, you may come again to Claude and ask it questions on your notes. That is an particularly useful facet impact within the sense that you may shortly discover what you have been considering at any given cut-off date. If it is in your notes, Claude will discover what you are on the lookout for, or simply provide you with a normal thought of the place you have been headed.
The shoebox is lastly sorted
Why this strategy labored when all the things else didn’t
I used to be in a position to gather ideas from just about my complete skilled profession as a software program developer and journalist in a day—a activity that might in any other case have taken me properly past a full weekend. I can proceed engaged on my now-organized notes in AFFiNE, and Claude takes care of any group points. To not point out it additionally pulls double obligation as a search engine for my very own ideas. It is one of many greatest the explanation why I began utilizing Claude as a substitute of a number of apps, and I am not going again.
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Organizing this mess taught me that the issue was by no means discovering the fitting app. The issue was that I wanted a reader, not a container. I wanted one thing that would have interaction with my content material, perceive it, and make adjustments accordingly. Claude turned out to be the closest factor to that—not excellent, not a alternative for clear considering, however a remarkably great tool to prepare that messy stage in my mind the place concepts are half-formed.
