Where do you organise your writing?

[Pricelessadvice]

I’m busy with work at the moment so not getting to write as much as I want. When I do return to my novel, I’ve often lost track of the timeframe or previous things.
Normally I jot stuff down in a notebook but it’s not well organised and a faff to keep searching through.
Does anyone have any good apps that I can have open alongside Word to keep track of what’s going on without having to re-read previous sections everytime I want to write?

Hi OP,
How far through the novel are you? I had similar issues when I got about 40k words in. For me what really helped, was having distinct summaries of each chapter in my notes app, including any important/ specific details. I read this through before each writing session, and found myself a lot more organised. Reading everything back is a slog (and also in the first draft stage rather humbling).

Thanks for replying. I’m about 30k words in now.
It will be little things like forgetting a character has something planned the following ‘week’ and then when I realise I have to re-write and move stuff around.

I only used it for a free trial to organise my chapters (dual timeline mess!) but Scrivener has lots of features that can help with this I think.

I also fed chapters into ChatGPT and got it to do summaries for me. Didn’t use them for anything other than my own reference.

Scrivener (for the actual writing), a paper tablet (for plotting), notes (for observations), snd a tiny paper notebook (everything else) in my handbag. I’m also going to use an A0 sheet of paper to do a timeline for every character. It’s probably overkill and a maybe even a procrastinatory time suck but it’s getting me there. Maybe!