The problem
Notes spread across five apps, each with its own export problem. Studies in one place, receipts in another, the server in my head. None of it could be searched together, and none of it would survive a vendor shutting down.
Approach
Plain markdown files in folders on my own disk. No database, no format that needs a program to read. The working method is collect, connect, create: everything lands in an inbox first, then gets placed in the right domain and linked.
What is built
Each domain is effectively its own small vault with a hub note as the local map. Templates keep notes consistent, wikilinks keep them connected, and a knowledge graph makes it possible to ask about relationships across the whole thing instead of searching for words.
The whole thing is version controlled with git and synced to my own server, so there is both a history and a copy I own myself.
Outcome
The system is in daily use. It runs the studies, the household and the business, and it is also what this portfolio was written out of. The vault has since become the foundation of an AI layer: a search service indexes all of it, so assistants can look things up in the notes instead of guessing at them.
What I learned
That the value sits in the rules for where things go, not in the tool. Once the routing rules were written down, the system stopped decaying between busy weeks.