(Note: I'm not affiliated with any of the mentioned products or companies.)

After using Notion for some time for taking notes and trying out some standard platforms for blogging I realized that "less is more" even when it comes to software. Here are some thoughts behind choosing Simplenote and Mataroa as my go-to platforms for note taking and blogging.

Less options = more time for content

When taking notes in Notion, I eventually noticed that the myriad of options it provides are mostly distractions when I was simply trying to jot down a couple of ideas. For simple note taking, the whole database system of notes within notes is actually quite an overkill and can be a factor that slows one down due to the sheer number of options to organize one's knowledge and notes.

Simplenote is very straightforward and its formatting is limited to what Markdown will offer. There are no folders but rather only one "layer" of notes that can be interlinked horizontally. Notes can have various tags and be filtered through them. Search is also available. And that's all - no complex formatting, nor filtering and visualizing of notes in different ways.

This means, there's no time wasted on unnecessary choices. Only the content.

In the world of blogging platforms, the same goes for Mataroa blog. Even simple blogging sites such as Blogger will offer an array of choices when it comes to design. Mataroa, on the other hand, offers only two choices for fonts and that's it. All you have to focus on is what you want to write about. Just like Simplenote, it supports Markdown which means that it's interface will be really minimal.

Clever choice of features

The beauty of both Simplenote and Mataroa is that once stripped to bare bones they do offer just the perfect set of features that are needed.

Simplenote provides horizontal linking of notes. Notes can be also instantly published on the Web and shared. The styling features are few but actually just what one needs for the usability of the app: - line density
- font size
- sorting order of notes and tags - background color - pass lock

There's nothing superfluous but all the truly important features are there.

Mataroa goes in the same direction. It includes: - comments
- collectiing emails through newsletter subscription
- RSS feed
- automatically sending newsletters
- basic (3-week) analytics (only the number of visits) These features are what most bloggers would require for their blogs and it's more than some other blogging platforms of similar type (such as Bear Blog or Smol Pub) offer.

Lightning-speed loading

At last but not the least, they both load super fast. Opening Simplenote is instantaneous and the app will also work offline and sync when one gets online. There are apps for every platform and in my experience it all works flawlessly. This can't be said for Notion and some other heavier apps that take some seconds to load.

Mataroa also loads pretty much instantly in web browsers and, due to its lightness, gets almost the perfect score in Page Speed Insight tests which makes the blog more likely to appear in Google search.

Portability and Markdown

Both Simplenote and Mataroa give an option to easily export their Markdown files. These can be later opened in any software that supports .md files. This means they don't lock users in their system.

Overall, both apps are great options for people who are looking for quick and functional tools for note taking and blogging.