I have a 10 line C# script which manages my notes. It's pinned to my Start menu. When I run it, it ensures an .md file for the current day is created in the folder for the current day, which is in the folder for the current month, which is in my notes folder, then opens VSCode on my notes folder with today's file focused. This is the bare minimum note structure which I can then break out into multiple files or move things to long-running folders as needed. VSCode is an excellent note taking tool in general, with extensions such as draw.io support or auto pasting images into Markdown.
There are a number of extensions which do the same thing, I happen to use Markdown Image by Hancel.Lin - if you do, make sure to configure it to put image files next to the file you're pasting into rather than at the root folder opened by VSCode
