Outliner, Linked Notes App or a Simpler Journal? How to Pick
Which one should you pick?
Pick a block outliner if you think in bullets and want every line to link anywhere. Pick a linked Markdown notes app if you want a folder of files you shape yourself. Pick a simpler journal if what you need most is to write a few honest lines a day and find them again later.
All three are good tools. They suit different people, and the wrong match feels like work. This guide skips feature lists and looks at the questions that decide whether you’ll still be using the tool in three months.
What is each kind of tool really built for?
Block outliners treat every bullet as its own unit. You open a daily page, type in nested bullets, and tag or link any line to a topic page. Later, that topic page gathers every bullet that mentioned it. People who think in fragments, run meeting notes, or like to reshape structure on the fly tend to love this.
Linked Markdown notes apps treat each note as a plain text file in a folder on your computer. You link notes with a simple syntax, see a graph of how they connect, and add plugins to fit almost any workflow. People who want full control over their files and enjoy building a system tend to love this.
Simpler journals start from a blank page and a date. There’s less to set up and less to tune. People who mostly want to write, reflect and look back, without designing a system first, tend to stay with these.
How do they compare on what matters for journaling?
| What matters | Block outliner | Linked Markdown app | Simpler journal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing in your own words | Bullets on a daily page | Free-form pages | A writing box and a date |
| Setup before day one | Some: learn blocks and links | More: folders, templates, plugins | Little to none |
| Linking ideas | Strong, line by line | Strong, note to note | Varies a lot by app |
| Saving what you read | Usually by hand or plugin | Usually by hand or plugin | Varies a lot by app |
| Resurfacing old notes | Backlinks and queries | Backlinks, graph, plugins | Often “on this day” or search |
| Owning your files | Often plain text | Plain Markdown files | Check the export before you commit |
The pattern: the first two give you power in exchange for decisions. A simpler journal takes decisions away so writing comes first.
What question should you ask yourself first?
Ask: “When I sit down, do I want to write or to organize?”
If organizing is part of the pleasure, an outliner or a linked notes app will reward you. Tweaking a template on a Sunday can feel as good as the writing itself.
If organizing is the thing that makes you stop, every setting is a reason to skip a day. You’ll get more from a tool with fewer choices, even if it can do less on paper.
People describe this the same way again and again: writing every day starts to feel like a chore, and rereading old entries feels flat. That’s rarely a lack of features. It’s usually a tool that asks for too much before it gives anything back.
What about all the stuff you save but never read?
This is where many journaling setups fall apart. Your thoughts live in one place, bookmarks in another, saved videos in a third. “Where did I save that?” becomes a regular question.
With an outliner or a linked notes app you can bring saved material in, but it’s usually manual: copy a quote, paste a link, write your own summary. That works if you’re disciplined. For many people, the clipping never happens and the pile grows.
When you compare tools, ask two things:
- Can I turn a link into notes without much effort? If saving takes ten minutes, you’ll save less and read even less.
- Do my own thoughts stay separate from what I saved? Mixing them can be handy, but it’s easy to bury your thinking under other people’s words.
Thrennel, the journal I build, keeps these two apart on purpose. Your journal holds what you think, your knowledge holds what you saved, and you can filter to either or see both. When you paste a link (an article, a YouTube video, or a single X post), it writes a summary and key points. You review them, edit, delete or add, and only then is anything saved. For videos it listens to what’s said rather than watching the picture, so a talk or interview works well and a video with no speaking won’t give much. It handles public YouTube videos and X posts, up to two hours, usually within a minute.
How much does resurfacing matter?
More than most people expect. A journal you never reread is a diary. A journal that brings back the right note at the right moment starts acting like a second brain.
Outliners and linked notes apps do this through backlinks and graphs. They’re excellent if you link consistently as you write. Skip linking for a few weeks and those connections don’t exist.
Simpler journals range from “search box only” to tools that suggest connections for you. Worth checking:
- Does search find meaning, or only exact words?
- Does anything show you related older notes while you write?
- Are there weekly or monthly summaries that show patterns in your thinking?
Will you be stuck if you switch later?
Check export before you write a single entry. A good rule: you should be able to leave with everything, in a format other apps can read.
Linked Markdown apps do well here because your notes are already plain files. Many outliners store plain text too. Simpler journals vary, so look for Markdown export at minimum. Thrennel exports everything any time as Markdown, as JSON, or as linked Markdown files you can open in other note apps, with one file per day and per saved source and the links between notes kept.
A small test you can try this week
Don’t decide from feature pages. Run a five-day test with the tool you’re leaning toward:
- Day 1: Write three sentences about your day. No setup allowed beyond what’s needed to type.
- Day 2: Save one article or video you’d normally bookmark, and write one line on why it matters.
- Day 3: Write again and try to connect today’s note to something from day 1 or 2.
- Day 4: Skip on purpose. Notice whether coming back feels easy or heavy.
- Day 5: Search for something you wrote on day 1 using a different word than you used. See if it turns up.
If you spent more time configuring than writing, the tool is too heavy for you right now. If day 5’s search failed, resurfacing will be a weak point. If day 4 felt like guilt, look for something gentler.
So which is right for you?
- You think in bullets and love linking every line: a block outliner.
- You want plain files and enjoy building your own system: a linked Markdown notes app.
- You want to write first, save what you read without much effort, and have it connect on its own: a simpler journal with second-brain features.
None of these is the “serious” choice. The best one is the one you open tomorrow.
Questions people ask
Can I use an outliner or a linked notes app just as a journal? Yes. Many people keep a daily page and nothing else. The tools stay out of the way if you ignore the extras, though the extras are always one click away.
Is a simpler journal too limited for a second brain? Not necessarily. Some simpler journals add linking, meaning-based search, summaries and saved-link notes. What makes it a second brain is whether old notes come back when they’re useful, not how many settings it has.
Should I keep my journal and research notes in the same app? Keeping them in one place helps them meet. Keeping them in separate sections inside that place helps your own thinking stay visible. Doing both is a good middle ground.
What if I already have years of entries elsewhere? Look for an import that accepts Markdown or text files and keeps dates. Thrennel imports Markdown, text files and Day One exports, and dated entries land on their original days.
Thrennel is in an invite-only beta and free while it’s in beta. If a calm, writing-first journal that turns what you save into notes sounds like your kind of tool, request access.