Note Templates
Starting from a blank page is hard. The hard part is rarely the writing — it is deciding what to write first. So Jotaid ships six templates, each an ordered set of questions.
Where They Are
macOS: with no note selected, the right side shows the empty page, and its TEMPLATES section lays out six cards in a 2×3 grid. Click one and Jotaid immediately creates a note pre-filled with that skeleton and opens it, titled after the template.
iOS has no templates yet — on iPhone, write straight into Quick Note, or open a note you started from a template on the Mac.
The Six
They are not document formats but six ways of thinking, each matching a common kind of task:
| Template | In a line | Skeleton |
|---|---|---|
| Literature Note | Source, claims & your thinking | Source / Author → Core Claims → Key Quotes → My Thinking → Related |
| Decision Record | Options, decision & rationale | Status → Context → Options → Decision & Rationale → Consequences |
| Problem Framing | Find the real problem | Observations → The Real Problem → Stakeholders → Constraints → How Might We |
| Insight Card | From observation to meaning | What I Observed → What It Means → Conflicts or Confirms → Related |
| Weekly Review | Progress, blockers & focus | Progress This Week → Blockers → What I Learned → Focus for Next Week |
| Brainstorm | Diverge, then converge | Prompt → Ideas → Themes → Most Promising → Next |
The Italics Are Asking You Something
Under many sections sits a line of italic text. It is not content to keep — it is a question put to you:
## My Thinking
*Where do you agree, doubt, or extend this?*Answer it and delete the italic line. It exists only for the few seconds you spend staring at the blank space.
A template is not a mould
What you get is an ordinary note. Delete sections, add sections, replace the lot. The title is pre-filled with the template's name, and renaming it is the norm rather than the exception.
Why These Six
They cover different links in one chain of thought: Problem Framing comes first (do not rush to solve the wrong problem), Brainstorm diverges, Decision Record converges, Literature Note brings in outside input, Insight Card settles your own judgement, and Weekly Review looks back.
Use them for a while and you will notice these six sit naturally at different levels: decision records and weekly reviews often make good project notes, while insight cards and literature notes are the most typical atomic notes. See Projects.
Custom templates are not supported yet. If you have a fixed structure of your own, keep one note holding that skeleton and duplicate it when you need it.
Next Steps
- Note Formatting — How to write the syntax inside those skeletons
- Projects — Which level a template's output belongs to