What notes software have you found it FUN to use?

Posted by Paul Korm
Oct 20, 2023 at 08:53 AM

I’m afraid my toys would be saddened if I picked just one as the fun one. So there’s three that I play with even when I have nothing important to do: Curio, Obsidian and TheBrain.

Curio, because it’s just a blank canvas to start with and is so pleasant to work with that I build pages and models just to see them come to life. Curio is what canvas apps like Notion, and Craft, and whatever that thing is that Apple made, can never be because they put so many barriers in the way of layout flexibility and graphical adornment.

Obsidian because it sparks the same pleasure i had when I was small and kept cigar box treasure chests. I never thought building scaffolding around notes and links could be so enjoyable.

TheBrain because it’s a bit of both Curio and Obsidian with the addition of a long and broad timeline: my main brain documents go back decades—predating almost all other software I use. TheBrain is also a treasure chest. (I hoard notes, now.)

There are more than three fun things of course. Exploring software and getting to know developers and how they think about their creations is so much more fun than playing games.