> nothing else seems to work as far as productivity

What doesn't work, exactly?

If you're trying to replace note taking on paper, you might want to dip a toe into Emacs and org-mode land and see how it feels. (My suggestion is to just start out slowly and play around with it.)

If you don't feel productive in just manipulating text, I'd check out vim. It really is the superior text editor!

Personally, I think you should begin with plain ole emacs, and start with the emacs tutorial, and work your way up from there. Once you're comfortable navigating buffers, creating files, and reading emacs manuals, check out the org mode manual. If you find yourself intrigued, you'll dig deeper.