A Meta-Layer for Notes

There are dozens of great note taking apps out there: Evernote, Google Keep, Apple Notes, Workflowy, Notion, Roam … the list goes on and on. Every one of these tools has its own unique angle on note taking, but they all have one thing in common: They are stand-alone apps.

We have long treated notes as a distinct silo in our productivity stack, when we should have integrated them right into our workflows instead. While email might need an overhaul, I see a way bigger opportunity in rethinking digital note taking.

You could argue that note taking is essentially single-player collaboration where you communicate with your future self

After playing around with it for a few weeks, my conclusion is this: Hey’s most interesting aspect is not its radical approach to email – but its fresh approach to note taking!

This strikes me as suboptimal. Neither the creation nor the consumption of notes should be treated as separate workflows.

Post-it notes are so powerful because they have a spatial relationship to their context.

What makes post-it notes so interesting is the spatial relationship between the notes and their respective context.

Together, post-its essentially become a notes layer that augments the real world. Instead of a physical notebook that lists all your notes and tasks in chronological order, post-it notes are scattered around your house but tied to specific places or objects where they are most relevant.