org mode is alright but learning emacs has been a real deal for me.

And also a single un-specified implementation.

(though I am thrilled that it is in progress! https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html )

Hum, meh, personally I've jumped the ship from Unix to Emacs few years ago: in a month Emacs became mine most used application, in another or two my windows manager (EXWM) and if few more months I decide to devastate my decades-old hyper-curated home taxonomy to put all my files in a cache-like tree handled via org-attach, accessing them mostly via search&narrow before with linkmarks + manual org-mode, after with org-roam. I have almost anything in Emacs form emails to personal finance, files, agenda, ... everything integrated in ways no other tool I know of can give...

The learning curve exists of course, but it's not that hard if you have a bit of IT background and in any case it pay back so much that's absolutely worth the initial "capex"...

It can be as much or as little as you want, really. If you are completely new to Emacs and org-mode, you can take just a little time to learn a few shortcut keys and the basic formatting, and you are off. And, yes, then you can spend forever learning more and making it the way you want. But critically, you don't have to and can be up and running as quick as anything else.

Not sure if you're referring to Emacs or org mode.

Org mode has an extremely shallow learning curve. I literally watched Carsten Dominik's Google Tech Talk and was immediately productive. Every time I wanted to do more, the information was easy to find.

Getting used to Emacs - well sure ;-)

I bet I can explain orgmode in 10 lines. This is literally the only orgmode functionality I use, and have used, for years.

1. You specify subheadings, or “outline format,” with asterisks at the start of a line, with 1 asterisk (*) per level.

2. Use no asterisk for ultimate high level. If you have no asterisks at all at the beginning of a line in your text file, it’s literally a plain text file, not really org mode at all.

3. One asterisk (*) at the start of a line for top level beneath that.

4. Two asterisks (**) at the start of a line for the level beneath that - call it sub top level.

5. Three asterisks(***) at the start of a line for the level beneath sub top level…

6. You get it: add asterisks at the start of a line, one more than is present in the asterisk level above yours, to go “deeper” into subsections. If you want to “reset” and start at top level again, use 1 asterisk or *. To reset to sub top level, use two asterisks or **…

7. Now, to navigate between these levels, press tab to expand, and tab again to close. Typically your view will only be of “top level” headings.

8. You can use orgmode in Emacs (assumed default, as that's where it originated) or you can just as easily use it in vim after installing an extension. In vim, where I typically use it, press zR to expand everything, if you’d rather default to a view where everything is expanded and you contract stuff to make it more navigable.

I don’t use any org functionality outside this, just this, and it’s been a godsend.

The editor understands the text files in a systematic way. I can jot down a date for a todo as I’m taking a note in my daily journal, and as long org-agenda can look across all my text files and show it in my agenda.