Writing software comes up with a million different ways to make what used to be called notes in the margin, reminders, observations, possibilities. Over the years I must have tried every one.

Scrivener has more than one method too. But as I get older I crave simplicity so here's the one I use.

<img style="padding-left:4px;" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/screen-shot-2010-03-01-at-17-19-13.png" alt="Screen shot 2010-03-01 at 17.19.13.png" width="500" height="88">

It's called annotations. You get it by hitting a simple keyboard combo, shift-command-A. All it does is let you write in a simple piece of text that has this very visible piece of formatting. Why do I prefer this over other more techno-fancy solutions such as hidden notes? A few reasons...
<ul>
	<li>It's very easy to see which also means it's very hard to miss. Those notes that disappear from sight are often easily lost, at least they are for me.</li>
	<li>It tells you what it wants to say without asking you to click on anything.</li>
	<li>It's just text so it comes up on a simple search. If you have a scheme for inserting, say, an annotation called 'rewrite' you can spot every one just by typing 'rewrite' into the search field.</li>
	<li>When you're finished with it you just delete the annotation like any other text.</li>
	<li>The default formatting is plug ugly, which makes me want to deal with the thing even more.</li>
</ul>
Dead simple. I like that.