Paper notebook, plaintext files

I've tried most note-taking apps. Each one lasted about a month before I got more interested in configuring it than in writing anything down. The setup I've stuck with for half a year now is almost embarrassingly simple.

Paper for thinking

A cheap A5 dotted notebook goes everywhere with me. Messy ideas, lists, sketches, half-sentences. Nothing on paper needs to be tidy, and nothing gets lost to notifications.

Text files for keeping

Once a week I go through the notebook and move anything worth keeping into plain .txt files in one folder, one file per topic. No tags, no links, no plugins. Search is just searching.

The weekly review is the real trick: it forces me to reread what I wrote, and about half of it turns out not to matter. The other half is what ends up on this site.