Quick notes with org capture

org-capture is the best native tool for low-friction note taking in Emacs. The meat and potatoes of the tool are the templates stored in org-capture-templates. Here are some examples from my config:

(("l" "learning-log"
  table-line (file "~/iCloud Drive/Documents/org/references/learning-log.org")
  "| %<%Y-%m-%d> | %^{Log description} | %? |"
  :table-line-pos "I+1")
 ("m" "meetings"
  entry (file+olp+datetree "~/iCloud Drive/Documents/org/local/meetings.org")
  "**** %^{Meeting title}\n\n- %?"
  :time-prompt t :empty-lines-before 1 :jump-to-captured t)
 ("t" "todo"
  entry (file+olp+datetree "~/iCloud Drive/Documents/org/local/todo.org")
  "**** TODO %^{Todo title}\n\n%?"
  :time-prompt t :empty-lines-before 1 :jump-to-captured t))

These templates are explained in-detail in info "(org) Template elements". Each template contains a template string, which describes the actual text to be inserted. Placeholders in the form of %-escapes are used to define dynamic content which will be added automatically or interactively.¹ Two of the most useful placeholders are %^{PROMPT} and %?. These respectively prompt for text and set the initial cursor position.