I’ve tried hundreds of note-taking apps over the years in my quest to find the “perfect” one. Eventually, I realized the apps were never the problem.
The real issue was that I rarely put in the time to organize my notes or build on the half-formed ideas I captured.
I wasn’t bad at taking notes; I was just bad at turning chaos into something usable. That’s where Gemini quietly changed the equation.
I asked NotebookLM to make sense of my digital chaos — and it kind of did
It connected dots I had not noticed
Capturing ideas was easy. Doing something with them wasn’t
The problem always appeared later
Taking notes was never the hard part. I keep switching between various note-taking apps, but all of them are good enough to get the job done.
They provide me with a blank slate where I can immediately start jotting down my thoughts. Some apps even offered templates that helped me capture ideas in a more structured manner.
However, whenever I revisited these notes later, I often felt confused. The half-formed ideas were difficult to decipher, and the meeting notes I hurriedly wrote down barely made sense without proper context.
Similarly, I stared blankly at links I shared hurriedly a few days earlier. Without explanation or relevant information, they had lost their purpose.
To make sense of it all, I had to sit down, take my time, and recall why I wrote down certain points for a meeting. Or why I added this link to my Keep.
That process required mental energy and focus, something which I rarely had whenever I sat down to review my notes.
I even started using folders, tags, and databases to add structure and context to my notes. But that felt like an additional task, one which added friction.
When an idea strikes, I want to write it down immediately rather than spend time organizing it.
Because of this, most of the notes I took eventually lost their purpose and became meaningless. Instead of serving as useful reference points, they became a mental backlog.
Over time, I stopped relying on my notes altogether. I kept blaming note-taking apps for this and kept juggling between them, hoping one would magically fix this problem.
This is the same problem I faced with to-do apps until Todoist Ramble arrived to keep up with my brain.
That made me realize that I didn’t need a better note-taking app. I needed something that could take my chaotic notes and make sense of them.
Gemini might just help make sense of my chaotic notes
Letting Gemini deal with my messy notes
I still have not changed how I jot down my notes. They are still half-baked ideas, meeting notes lacking context, and X or LinkedIn links without any relevant information.
And I don’t even sit down later to manually organize them.
What changed is that I let Gemini clean up my notes later.
When I revisit a messy note later, I first paste it into Gemini and ask it to make sense of it.
If I am pasting meeting notes, I ask Google’s AI assistant to give me a list of actionable items or summarize the core takeaways.
For half-baked ideas, I ask Gemini to refine my thoughts and help with possible directions to build on them.
When I brain dump something in notes, I ask the AI assistant to give me a simple outline based on it.
I also use Gemini’s help to refine my ideas further — point out any obvious gaps, the challenges I might face, or what my immediate steps should be.
Similarly, for links, I paste them in Gemini and ask how they could be helpful or relevant to me.
Given that Google’s AI chatbot already knows about me and what I do, it has the relevant context to identify and explain why a particular link matters or summarizes what’s worth paying attention to.
Sometimes, I add a quick audio clip to a note, which can add more context for Gemini to work with.
I still switch between note-taking apps after realizing that there’s not one perfect app that suits my needs. But for notes that I take in Google Keep, the Gemini integration makes things easier.
I can’t always recall a note that I have saved. Instead of going through all the notes in Keep, I simply ask Gemini to surface notes related to a specific project or topic.
If those notes happen to be meeting notes, I directly ask Gemini to give a list of actionable items and add them directly to Google Tasks.
This saves me from unnecessarily copying and pasting notes between my current preferred note-taking app and Gemini, reducing unwanted friction.
Ideally, I’d love to see this Keep-like deep Gemini integration expand to other note-taking apps as well. This would make my workflow even more powerful.
Chaos in, clarity out
I am still taking chaotic and messy notes — probably more than ever now that I know Gemini is there to take care of the chaos.
Having an AI between me and my notes has almost removed the friction that existed previously. I can now easily revisit my notes down the line and make sense of them all.
And when taking notes, I simply focus on thinking, not organizing — and that has made all the difference.
