Act as a senior front-end developer with 5+ years of experience building web applications. Guide me step-by-step in creating a [MINIMALIST] note-taking app using [HTML, CSS, and JavaScript] that saves notes to the browser's local storage. Include the following features: [1) A clean UI with a text input area, 2) The ability to save, edit, and delete notes, 3) Persistent storage so notes remain after page refresh]. Provide code snippets for each functionality and explain how local storage works in this context. Also, suggest best practices for error handling and optimizing performance for this type of app.