# 756 — Exploring NotePlan With David Roth

## Metadata
- Author: [[Mac Power Users]]
- Full Title: 756 — Exploring NotePlan With David Roth
- Category: #podcasts
- URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/4e25afd6-7b79-459a-a3f9-f1659e36daea
## Highlights
- Episode AI notes
1. David Roth discusses the advantages of NotePlan as an application that integrates tasks, events, and notes uniquely.
2. The episode highlights the easy migration capabilities from apps like Craft and Obsidian to NotePlan, reinforcing its user-friendly design.
3. Roth emphasizes that while NotePlan is suitable for less intensive users, Obsidian offers extensive features for power users.
4. Listeners are encouraged to assess personal needs when selecting note-taking applications, balancing functionality with ease of use.
5. The comparison with Apple Notes illustrates its effectiveness in capturing and retrieving information, despite issues with exporting data.
6. Roth suggests that using multiple applications for different tasks can enhance productivity while avoiding overwhelm.
7. The conversation promotes the idea of evaluating the choice of primary note-taking applications periodically, particularly at the start of a new year. ([Time 0:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/episode-takeaways/536dc9f3-fe23-4e65-aeb9-09cf35a7e7e7))
- Navigating Note-Taking Apps: A Comparative Analysis
Summary:
Importing data from various note-taking apps can streamline the user experience, as seen with easy migration capabilities from Craft and Obsidian to Note Plan.
However, not all functionalities and customizations from Obsidian will transfer seamlessly, particularly those tied to specific plugins. The simplicity and usability of Note Plan make it an appealing option for less intensive users, while Obsidian remains powerful for users who need extensive features.
Choosing between applications often involves a personal assessment of what features are essential versus what is appealing in terms of ease of use.
Apple Notes serves as a reference tool for many users due to its effective capturing and retrieval capabilities, but concerns exist regarding the inability to extract data easily from its proprietary format.
Balancing multiple apps for different tasks can enhance productivity, allowing users to optimize their workflow without overwhelming themselves with too many options. The notion of sticking to one primary app for extended periods encourages users to evaluate their needs carefully and make informed decisions on potential app replacements at specific times, such as the start of a new year.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
You can import from craft or upsetting. I pushed one button it dumped in my entire upsetting database and a very. Reasonable format because just like obsidian is a folder for mark 10 folders so this app so if you are on something like obsidian you want to kick the on this, it is painless to put your Data in. That said, not all of your stuff is going to work. I have a bunch of custom Obsidian text for plugins and things that just don't exist in this application. So some of it will, like, you know, data view and some of this stuff is not going to work in here. But it's a very easy way to give it a try. We've been dancing around that the whole show. Let's talk about it just in comparison to some of these various options. I know you haven't used Obsidian a lot, David, I have. I'm a big fan of Obsidian. And I'll tell you that there are definitely things I can do in Obsidian I cannot do with Note Plan, but the simplicity of it is very attractive to me. And I'm not sure where I stand on it, but this is an app I'm watching closely. I, I have a rule. I only change system apps on January 1st. That that's the thing I implemented two or three years ago, Steven. It's like, cause I caught myself doing this thing, this, you know, the app switch dance or so. Oh, I'm going to move my tasks into reminders. And then like, then I gotta go back to Ami focus or whatever. And so why I'm happy to test apps throughout the year and play with them. App I use to do my work, I'm only allowed to change that at the end of the year. You know, I, I kind of in December, I think about it. I make a decision, whatever I'm using on January 1st, it has to be the app I use for the rest of the year. And honestly, in December, I'm going to come back and look at this app very seriously, because I could see it replacing Obsidian. I would lose a bunch of stuff I do in Obsidian, but I would gain a lot too. So it's, it's, I will call it Obsidian light. It's definitely not as powerful, but it's got some nice advantages. And we all are on kind of that spectrum somewhere in terms of the features versus the usability stuff. And I think everybody has to make their own decision. But if you're not a Obsidianidian power user and you're looking for something a little softer, this is the one I would recommend. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I liked your 80 20 observation. I think that's very, very on point. Yeah.
Speaker 2
What about Apple notes? Have you looked at this in comparison to Apple notes? Cause Apple notes is a good app now too. And a lot of people are trying to just do all of this stuff in Apple notes. Yeah. I, I, with that very strongly.
Speaker 1
I am a right tool for the right job kind of person. So I don't clutter note plan with all the reference type stuff that I use Apple Notes for. So I still use Apple Notes daily and it's the place where I store software tips and reference items and stuff about my house and things like that. And I find it's very easy to capture things in Apple Notes and very easy to find things in Apple Notes. My state bar numbers, which 30 years later I still haven't memorized, those are in Apple Notes. One of my concerns about Apple Notes is stuff goes in and doesn't come out, that it's in its own proprietary database. And I have an app that backs up your Apple Notes as text notes, but anything that was in the RTF format gets lost in that. So if I've saved pictures and things like that, I don't have those things. So there's some concern about critical information in Apple Notes. I actually have played with the Obsidian plugin that backs up Apple Notes, and that's very good as well. So that's the one reason why Obsidian is installed on my computer.
Speaker 2
So that's a circuitous little path. You import Apple Notes into Obsidian, then import Obsidian into Note Plan.
Speaker 1
Okay, that would work. Yeah, and we've already talked about using reminders as a supplement as well because there's some information that's better captured and better stored in reminders. Shared list with my wife is a very good one. Packing lists go in reminders. I actually have a shortcut that populates my packing notes before a trip based on a few questions that asked me. So, um, I, you know, I, I, I'm not a big believer in excluding yourself from using other apps. I don't want a million apps because I don't want to have to look in a million places, but I have particular information in particular apps. Steven, what do you think?
Speaker 2
I feel like this app is like right up your alley. ([Time 1:12:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65b58f63-19d5-49ff-852a-2099ef25948d))