I prefer taking notes one-sided on loose sheets; unlike a bound notebook, you can freely insert, remove, and re-arrange pages. Taken directly from the zettelkasten concept, I date each sheet for a unique identifier, and then notes in a series are numbered hierarchically, so that, for example, a page inserted between those numbered #1.1 and #1.2 would get the number #1.1.1 ; for storage, I staple or clip my stacks and stash them in a hanging file.
For writing on the go, steno pads integrate well into this system; when I fill up a pad, I (eventually) unbind it and re-file the pages as if they were loose sheets.
Posts like these make me wish I could be consistant and keep a single notebook until its done and then move to the next. I always end up starting a project or scibbling down a thought on random scraps of paper. I try to organize and consolidate but really there is not much point after the fact since, if the note is made, transfering it is just busywork.
I leaned into it last couple of years, I have a 2 corkboards (a bit larger than A4 sized) on the back wall of my desk and I actually mounted a stationary clamp under one to have blank papers (A6) handy. It works pretty well until I fill them and move on to another notebook scrap paper etc.
I wish I could stick to a notebook and have everything from each time period but I have too hectic thought process I think. Maybe I could somehow combine them...
I bought a Supernote recently as a note-taking device, and that's worked out really well. It's almost like pen on paper to write on, but I can open new documents freely to make notes in, then consolidate them later because they're all already in one place. The stuff that's just working out or temporary diagrams I can delete later, and the rest I can archive.
On the other hand, I have gone from having a clutter of paper on my desk to having a clutter of notes on my Supernote, so maybe I've just moved the clutter from one place to another. But at least it's now less visible!
Digital notes are not for me, they seem to put up a mental barrier and have tradeoffs that I am not thrilled about. The epaper/e-ink ones have the best battery life, best feeling when writing but the delay when the display changes just halts my thinkin. When changing documents to reference especially. Also the process of changing implements (e.g. from pen to highlighter) in tablets in general just annoys me.
They are awesome for pdf annotation though, If they ever get to be a bit more affordable I would enjoy having one of these just for that purpose (maybe even in color! probably in about 10 yrs).
As i said on another comment: I tried to keep a physical notebook/common-place book, several times, but after a while i just stopped. I like handwriting but since i started using obsidian i don't believe i will return. I'm thinking perhaps of using papers as first draft or impromptu writing, and then final drafts will be stored or transferred to Obsidian.
I feel like hand written notes are great for people who are artistic.. I would love to take hand written notes, and be able to connect dots with lines on a page, draw diagrams, doodle etc, but I'm just so not creative enough.
I need structure. I need my lines to be perfectly aligned and spaced, I want to be able to search for things that I would have written down, because I don't remember which notebook its in. I admire people who can/do take hand written notes. For me, I need a computer (or phone) to take notes in, digitally
Yeah, it's just such a cool image, the person with the notebook at the meeting, he's probably doing something cool, with the same media that a lot of my favorite works of art and technical things probably started on.
He's got his job figured out so well it makes sense to have dedicated accessories and actually carry them around. He's a master of his tools, he must be really passionate about what he's doing(Or else he'd be staring at a screen). He's really made it.
But the actual experience... feels like work. And creates physical artifacts, which is then even more work, and phones are so highly addictive it really feels like work by comparision. Then if I go back and read them, I can't, unless I was carefully paying attention to each individual letter as I write it.
Not exactly something you can just pick up, it takes lots of experience to be able to write without being so distracted by trying to get your hand to make the letters that you stop paying attention...
Really the only time I ever write on paper these days is tabletop RPGs, a few checklists for very high profile projects worth having both digital and analog versions of, and a play I volunteered for where real paper made the most sense for tracking cues on lines of the script.
I agree! I love hand writing, I love the feel of pen in hand, and hand on paper, but it's so time consuming and inefficient for me, that it's not something I ever do
that's a very self limiting belief. the first step to getting good at something is being bad at something. live outside the lines a little. computerized notes encourages clean crisp digital lines, pen on paper evokes analog flowing lines of freedom.
I throw all my sketchbooks. I don’t have a lot of space but whatever I do like, I cut them up and keep them in a “Big A3 Book” (some terrible quality paper I bought form ASDA i refuse to touch cause it upset me)
I got the advice from an artist to just throw away your drawings if you don't immediately love them, to get over the hoarding instinct and be less precious about art. Hard for me but probably a good idea!
TBH, the big book trick lasted only so long until it got full of work I didn’t care about later. I went full insane and wrote my own client app which let me take pictures of my art and version them as I was working through them. Cause I did that, it was easier to throw the originals that I didn’t feel were that great. I personally really am into the technical process so this was far more valuable to me.
I've been doing more or less this with a small pocket size notebook since October. I admit that I initially fell for the romance of the idea and made an impulse purchase, but started to use them a couple of weeks after I bought them.
I tried different formats and pre-planning and have basically made peace with my reality, that I don't know what I'll be doing in it on any given day. So I operate like a log, whatever is next comes next. Sequentially. But I'll also jump to a page, or two-page spread, for notes on a particular project.
Here's what I use:
Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, Pocket (3.5" x 5.5") Dotted, Black, 64 Pages (Set of 3) https://a.co/d/9jXRxNt
I also use a 4 color flexion erasable pen, but I can't recommend that since you're liable to lose all your notes if you leave it in a hot car. Not so bad though, it comes back if you stick it in the freezer. No joke.
Nice post! I've always kept a journal since using laboratory notebooks (and learning how to organise them) at uni. Over the decades I've settled on taking a notebook and running a bullet journal from the front page, in, and an "autofocus" to-do list from the back page, in. This year I'm hosting it inside a day-to-a-page Moleskine diary because I never really spill over one page for my daily log and I was going through three journals a year which incurs three-times setup overhead.
What does “draw worth a damn” even mean? Personally, I much prefer to see people’s unique perspective on things through their art rather than just another hyper-realistic rendering of something I can already see in hyper realism.
"draw worth a damn" means that I could draw a thing, give the drawing to someone else, ask them what it is a drawing of, and get the correct answer, for anything beyond simple shapes and icons.
I notice he’s using roaring spring composition books. Roaring spring makes the only engineering notepads worth buying - the glue holds up, unlike all the others, and the paper is the right weight. I would expect their composition books to be better than the 99 cent ones.
> Plus, I love the disconnectedness of a sketchbook. I can sit and think and plan in a sketchbook, and it doesn’t distract me from what I’m doing.
This is why I still keep pens and physical notebooks on my desk. It's so much faster to flip it open and start writing than opening a 99th browser tab and navigating to an empty page on Notion, all while more desktop notifications start popping up on screen. Another side benefit is the act of writing / drawing out stuff actually helps me remember things better. Sure, my handwriting is atrocious but I rarely go back and read them anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I kept all of my notebooks. They are a completely different insight into my work and thoughts. Travel notebooks are particularly interesting to re-read.
I went digital about two years ago with my iPad Mini. It's more convenient, especially if you keep different kinds of notes in separate sequences. However I miss flipping through the pages, and the satisfaction of finishing a notebook.
In my drawing graveyard there is a couple dozen sketchbooks and (if stacked) a 5 foot tall pile of loose paper.
Sketchbooks are useful to me when travelling, they keep everything thing neat and in chronological order, but beyond that I like the idea of a sketchbook more than the reality.
When I start a sketchbook it's usually a belaboured drawing that sets a standard I feel obliged to live up to, and that can turn into a creative constraint.
If I really want to explore or experiment, I feel a lot more freedom with loose sheets of paper that I can crumple up and chuck across the room if the drawing isn't turning out.
This is awesome. I love this kind of stuffs, especially when it involves pen and paper. Reading the article, and seeing the dates on the notebook, made me felt bad. The author did realize the logic of a better dating system than we use everyday; the Big-endian is, to the best I know, easily sortable, sequential, and likely to be understood by all other cultures.
In normal conversation (either for business or personal), I like to use the "MMM DD, YYYY" format as it is easier to read and there is no ambiguity. While for recording/archiving or appending as part of a file-name, I've found YYYY-MM-DD to be most reliable.
> But it DOES help me actually THINK. Just like people say ‘writing is thinking’, drawing / sketching / and even note-taking is thinking for me as well.
A picture, as they say, it turns out, is worth a thousand words.
This is great inspiration. And I like the humble tone of this article. It isn't telling me to do something but is moreso presenting an idea and how it helps the author.
I have never been a good or consistent journal writer nor can I draw, but I'd like to. I have been buying some Muji notebooks to try and find a notebook size and style that I know I will consistently use.
This additionally reminds me of a Bullet Journal; for me, a Bullet Journal fulfills the role of the author's sketchbook; the creator, Ryder Carroll, brands it as a planner, diary, sketchbook, calendar, and a 'catch-all for life': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_journal
Helps to reign in the inner dialogue. At some point, a soft, friendly voice was discovered. She'd tell me to be nicer to myself. Seemingly we're 3-4, maybe 5 ppl inside this skull. Lately she changed into a nice granny and I found that it would be nice if she became my dominant self.
The current dominant self is all about herself, addicted to gaming, distracted, annyoing and anxious, and yearns for the end of life when frustrated. I'd never noticed these things if I hadn't given them a voice.
goes like this:
I'm dumb, I'm worthless, everyone would be better w/o me
her voice: What happened?
current me: I can't do this, this should be easy, I want to be dead
her voice: That so? What's your fear with this?
current me: I could be seen as lazy, I'd rather be dead than be seen as lazy
her voice, ironic tone: seems rational
Then the voices just stop and I can refocus... it's really weird. Anyways. Journaling really helps!
That was beautifully put. Thank you for that story.
I have also used analog sketchbooks and notebooks for a long time. Recent years it has been mostly text in Apple Notes. But I think my mental health requires me to start using paper notebooks and doodle more again.
I also love the tactile and aesthetic experience of paper and pen/pencil.
I read The Artist’s Way a long time ago that suggests you should start each day with writing two pages in flow (morning pages). I have some friends who are very hooked on this and I’m about to try that as well. It is really something with expressing thoughts regularly into words in physical space.
If this is a description of your own experience then I would very much recommend reading No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz, if you haven't done so already. It will probably resonate with you and hopefully give you some tools to expand the process you're describing.
Absolutely. Internal Family Systems \ Voice Dialogue perspective enables this process to continue and deepen. I would say that IFS puts too much of an accent on trauma, healing, changing (it is therapeutic approach after all), where VD is (in my opinion) more allowing, more positive, less patologizing. It does not matter after all, the perspective of having these voices is key.
Go get a notebook and a pen. Sit outside. Write about something that's on your mind from a different person's point of view. You'll discover what he's talking about.
This isn't unusual or new-age at all. Writing from a second point of view or imagined conversations as a tool for thinking goes back to at least Plato's Dialogues.
I was exactly the same. It really helped me during some of my darkest teenage years, but after few years, it just stopped. Sometimes i really missed it because i liked a lot the arguments we had. It was like someone smacked my head during various times and told me to stop with the non-senses.
During the Renaissance/Enlightenment, there was a lot of discussion among intellectuals on how to best keep notebooks/journals. A widely used system was to carry a small pocket notebook which was filled logbook style, with things entered as they came up. The material from the pocket notebook would later be transcribed to topically arranged journals. I believe I've read reference to this practice going back to Classical times. Given the frequent discussion of jornaling on HN, I'm surprised at the lack of discussion of this method.
I've tried maintaining a diary and a sketch book and can't usually last more than 6 months before they are lost and totally forgotten. It's still nice to find them in all fairness.
I've never found any personal benefit in the moment using them, I'm not sure if 6 months is not enough or for whatever reason they don't work for me.
I tried to keep a physical notebook/common-place book, several times, but after a while i just stopped. I like handwriting but since i started using obsidian i don't believe i will return. I'm thinking perhaps of using papers as first draft or impromptu writing, and then final drafts will be stored or transferred to Obsidian.
I use paper notebooks as the first point for very quick rough notes which I then build on in Notion, for me it works really well as I can quickly write the point down without really needing to look which is better for focus in meetings etc. The act of capturing it twice also seems to embed it better in my memory as well, but your mileage may vary with that.
Yes, for years I would carry around an index card or a small notebook. I would jot down significant thoughts or events in bullet point format. Later, I would write out longform a blog post about the ideas and events of the week, trying to weave it together into a coherent essay. Having something light on me at all times was critical to capture ideas. Letting them marinate for a while was typically a good thing, since I could continue thinking through the angles and making horizontal connections to other things going on in my life.
I finally got rid of most of my sketchbooks and diaries this year. I found keeping mine vain. (I'm not saying you keeping yours is vain, but mine definitely was). It was liberating, like getting rid of a lot of burden of thoughts and impressions I wanted to rid of by putting them down to paper in the first place
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] threadFor writing on the go, steno pads integrate well into this system; when I fill up a pad, I (eventually) unbind it and re-file the pages as if they were loose sheets.
I leaned into it last couple of years, I have a 2 corkboards (a bit larger than A4 sized) on the back wall of my desk and I actually mounted a stationary clamp under one to have blank papers (A6) handy. It works pretty well until I fill them and move on to another notebook scrap paper etc.
I wish I could stick to a notebook and have everything from each time period but I have too hectic thought process I think. Maybe I could somehow combine them...
This is the book: https://amzn.to/3OQxX4J
I started with these, and got through them easily: https://amzn.to/3YJwBx7
Now I use notebooks like this: https://amzn.to/47VJeJI
On the other hand, I have gone from having a clutter of paper on my desk to having a clutter of notes on my Supernote, so maybe I've just moved the clutter from one place to another. But at least it's now less visible!
They are awesome for pdf annotation though, If they ever get to be a bit more affordable I would enjoy having one of these just for that purpose (maybe even in color! probably in about 10 yrs).
He's got his job figured out so well it makes sense to have dedicated accessories and actually carry them around. He's a master of his tools, he must be really passionate about what he's doing(Or else he'd be staring at a screen). He's really made it.
But the actual experience... feels like work. And creates physical artifacts, which is then even more work, and phones are so highly addictive it really feels like work by comparision. Then if I go back and read them, I can't, unless I was carefully paying attention to each individual letter as I write it.
Not exactly something you can just pick up, it takes lots of experience to be able to write without being so distracted by trying to get your hand to make the letters that you stop paying attention...
Really the only time I ever write on paper these days is tabletop RPGs, a few checklists for very high profile projects worth having both digital and analog versions of, and a play I volunteered for where real paper made the most sense for tracking cues on lines of the script.
I tried different formats and pre-planning and have basically made peace with my reality, that I don't know what I'll be doing in it on any given day. So I operate like a log, whatever is next comes next. Sequentially. But I'll also jump to a page, or two-page spread, for notes on a particular project.
Here's what I use:
Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, Pocket (3.5" x 5.5") Dotted, Black, 64 Pages (Set of 3) https://a.co/d/9jXRxNt
I also use a 4 color flexion erasable pen, but I can't recommend that since you're liable to lose all your notes if you leave it in a hot car. Not so bad though, it comes back if you stick it in the freezer. No joke.
They force you to structure your thoughts in a way that others can understand.
Notebooks are extremely unorganized and un-understandable after a few days.
I've been keeping sketchbooks since the early 90s. It's a real treat to be able to see my work from that long ago.
I used to draw a lot as a kid, I just never got good at it.
I recommend the book "Drawing on the right side of the brain".
Its sort of a netflix of art lessons (although a bit more money since its niche). very high quality stuff.
focuses on classical art skills rather than modern styles of art.
This is why I still keep pens and physical notebooks on my desk. It's so much faster to flip it open and start writing than opening a 99th browser tab and navigating to an empty page on Notion, all while more desktop notifications start popping up on screen. Another side benefit is the act of writing / drawing out stuff actually helps me remember things better. Sure, my handwriting is atrocious but I rarely go back and read them anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I went digital about two years ago with my iPad Mini. It's more convenient, especially if you keep different kinds of notes in separate sequences. However I miss flipping through the pages, and the satisfaction of finishing a notebook.
Sketchbooks are useful to me when travelling, they keep everything thing neat and in chronological order, but beyond that I like the idea of a sketchbook more than the reality.
When I start a sketchbook it's usually a belaboured drawing that sets a standard I feel obliged to live up to, and that can turn into a creative constraint.
If I really want to explore or experiment, I feel a lot more freedom with loose sheets of paper that I can crumple up and chuck across the room if the drawing isn't turning out.
In normal conversation (either for business or personal), I like to use the "MMM DD, YYYY" format as it is easier to read and there is no ambiguity. While for recording/archiving or appending as part of a file-name, I've found YYYY-MM-DD to be most reliable.
A picture, as they say, it turns out, is worth a thousand words.
I have never been a good or consistent journal writer nor can I draw, but I'd like to. I have been buying some Muji notebooks to try and find a notebook size and style that I know I will consistently use.
This additionally reminds me of a Bullet Journal; for me, a Bullet Journal fulfills the role of the author's sketchbook; the creator, Ryder Carroll, brands it as a planner, diary, sketchbook, calendar, and a 'catch-all for life': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_journal
The current dominant self is all about herself, addicted to gaming, distracted, annyoing and anxious, and yearns for the end of life when frustrated. I'd never noticed these things if I hadn't given them a voice.
goes like this:
I'm dumb, I'm worthless, everyone would be better w/o me
her voice: What happened?
current me: I can't do this, this should be easy, I want to be dead
her voice: That so? What's your fear with this?
current me: I could be seen as lazy, I'd rather be dead than be seen as lazy
her voice, ironic tone: seems rational
Then the voices just stop and I can refocus... it's really weird. Anyways. Journaling really helps!
I have also used analog sketchbooks and notebooks for a long time. Recent years it has been mostly text in Apple Notes. But I think my mental health requires me to start using paper notebooks and doodle more again.
I also love the tactile and aesthetic experience of paper and pen/pencil.
I read The Artist’s Way a long time ago that suggests you should start each day with writing two pages in flow (morning pages). I have some friends who are very hooked on this and I’m about to try that as well. It is really something with expressing thoughts regularly into words in physical space.
This isn't unusual or new-age at all. Writing from a second point of view or imagined conversations as a tool for thinking goes back to at least Plato's Dialogues.
Ann Blair (2010) Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age
I've never found any personal benefit in the moment using them, I'm not sure if 6 months is not enough or for whatever reason they don't work for me.