Let’s start with the big question - “how has Amplenote changed my life for the better?” - and address the elephant in the room - the fact that I’m just getting started - at the same:

To paraphrase Princess Leia: “Help me, [Amplenote]. You’re my [best] hope!”
Or Babylon 5: “[Amplenote] was our last, best hope for [GTD]”

In 2020 I was diagnosed with ADHD and suddenly my entire educational, personal, and professional histories all made perfect sense. As part of rebuilding my weaker executive function skills, I’ve been leveraging the concept of having a “second brain” and because I’m a life-long geek nearing the end of the 30+ year career in technology, I use my iPad instead of a dead tree.

Over the last few years I’ve tried a number of task managers and note apps, each of which has either tried to be everything to everyone or been so specialized that I can’t create a single pane of glass to manage it all.

I found Amplenote by mistake, honestly. I don’t even know how I found it, but I know it wasn’t an ad, it was something more organic than that. But when I opened it up for the first time (phone first then iPad) I became hopeful. There were tasks and notes in one place but easily viewable on their own. I’ve always preferred keyboards for typing and formatting, so having Markdown shortcuts felt at home. Tags and automatic backlinks provides a frictionless and natural (to me) way to organize and connect related data.

And so while I’m just getting started, but this is the first time in a long time that I’ve found a tool that works out of the box instead of a big techno-toolbox.

I have hope again.