This free knowledge base tool organizes my thoughts better than imagination and obsidian

A personal knowledge management tool is essential for any professional looking for an efficient way to capture, organize and retrieve information. Logseq offers powerful features that make it an excellent tool for organizing your thoughts.

What is Logseq?

Logseq is an open-source personal knowledge management (PKM) tool that prioritizes user privacy by storing all your data locally. This powerful PKM app is designed to help you capture your thoughts, organize notes and tasks, retrieve information, and connect ideas. Logseq is an excellent tool for building your second brain and increasing productivity.

As an outline editor, Logseq breaks down information into bullet points, making it easy to structure thoughts and ideas. You can add images, videos, code snippets and files to your notes for a richer experience. Logseq is free and available on most major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

Download: Logseq for Mac | Windows | iOS | Android (Free)

How does Logseq compare to Notion and Obsidian?

While Notion and Obsidian have their strengths, Logseq stands out for its focus on curriculum-based workflows and its commitment to privacy and data ownership.

Notion is well known for its powerful project management features and wide range of templates for your productivity routines. On the other hand, Logseq is an outline editor built with two-way linking, making it much easier to load and link ideas across your knowledge base.

Obsidian is a powerful, feature-rich PKM that offers extensive customization through plug-ins and support for complex workflows. However, one notable drawback of Obsidian is its steep learning curve, which makes it more challenging for beginners.

Logseq’s intuitive user interface and outline format make it an ideal choice for anyone who prefers ease of use over extensive feature sets. One of the main reasons to choose Logseq over Notion or Obsidian is your note taking style, i.e. you prefer a more structured and hierarchical approach to note management.

Here are some outstanding features that make Logseq an excellent PKM for organizing your thoughts.

Outline editor for inline journaling

As mentioned above, Logseqs favors an outline-based interface, which makes it ideal for interstitial journaling—an effective method for capturing thoughts, tasks, or notes that occur throughout the day. The Diaries page is your starting point where you enter your notes after opening Logseq. Each day a new page is automatically created with the date at the top of the outline.

Notes in Logseq are organized into blocks, making it easy to break down ideas into smaller, more digestible chunks. Press each time you type a line Enterand automatically creates a new block below the previous one. Press to indent or indent the blocks Tab and Shift + Tabto create the desired hierarchy for your notes.

Additionally, the timestamp feature makes it easy to track when you add a particular block, making it easy to keep an accurate log of your inline journal. All you have to do is press / (slash) and enter Current timei.e. /Current time. This will automatically insert the current time into your pad and create a chronological record of your notes.

Two-way connection and data acquisition

Logseq’s two-way connectivity feature is fundamental to how it organizes and retrieves information. Creating page links (linking pages) automatically creates a two-way relationship between two pages. This means it will create one link to what I wrote and another that will automatically appear in the Linked references part of the page I’m linking to. This feature is especially useful for creating connections between different notes.

Two-way linking extends beyond pages and into individual blocks. I can link to individual blocks of text from anywhere in my notes and that block will reflect a link back to its source.

You can create a link to the page using [[]] double brackets and entering the name of the page you want to link to, i.e. [[Page Name]]. You can also create a link to a block using (()) double parenthesis and entering a description of the block, i.e. ((Block Description)).

This makes it much easier to retrieve specific information as you can follow links in either direction to find related content. It also helps with organizing your notes as you can quickly see which pages and blocks are linked.

Markdown support and task management

Markdown is a popular markup language with universal application and cross-platform and device support. Logseq offers full markdown support, making it easy to format notes in a clean and organized way. Standard Markdown syntax is fully supported, allowing me to apply formatting such as headings, italics, bold, links and more.

I also use Logseq to track tasks. I can quickly turn any block into a task by typing /TODO the task description follows. This creates a checkbox that I can tick when the task is complete.

Setting priorities is just as easy, for example using built-in tags [#A] for high priority tasks. I use commands like /Period and /Scheduled add due dates to tasks.

Flashcards for viewing and memorizing information

Logseq cards are useful for learning new material, making it easier to review and remember new information. All you need to create a card is add #card or [[card]] to any block to turn that block into a card. The first block becomes the question (front of the card) and the indented block becomes the answer (back of the card).

You can access all your cards in Cards on the sidebar. Press WITH show answer You can also add closures or fill in the blank questions by adding {{cloze}}. For example:

Logseq is powerful
{{PKM customs duty}}
application for recording your notes

This would happen:

Logseq is powerful
[…]

application for recording your notes.

Logseq cards support spaced repetition, a learning technique that uses increasing time intervals between reviews. This will help you remember information more efficiently by spacing out your reviews. Logseq Cards can centralize your learning by eliminating the need for a separate card app.

Whiteboard and graph view to connect ideas

Logseq White board feature turns your notes into dynamic visual representations. You can use White board in the sidebar, you can add images, diagrams and illustrations to your notes, making it easier to connect and visualize ideas. This visual approach to organizing ideas is useful for brainstorming ideas.

The Logseq graph view is another visual feature for connecting notes. It displays the relationships between notes in a graphical format and shows how they are connected within the knowledge base. This bird’s-eye view helps you find connections between ideas and discover new relationships between notes.

Extend the functionality of Logseq with plugins

As well as Obsidian’s extensive plugin library, you can extend the functionality of Logseq with third-party plugins. These plugins add new features, shortcuts, and integrations with other apps to enhance your note-taking experience.

My favorite Logseq plugins include the Todo list plugin for quick task management, Reminder for setting up system alerts for my tasks and the logseq-kanban-plugin for creating kanban boards in my notes. These plugins improve my annotation workflows and allow me to customize Logseq to suit my needs.

Logseq is a useful personal knowledge management application and outline editor that offers several features for organizing and connecting ideas. Its privacy-focused approach makes it a great alternative to other popular note-taking tools. Give it a try and see how it can improve your notes and organizational processes.