I have a dedicated couple of pages in a notebook, where I write down the note-taking conventions I use. When transitioning to a new notebook, I would copy those pages, possibly making a few improvements based on past usage. A most unhurried release cycle, if I can say so myself.
Regarding the space management, there are many solutions straight out of the programming world, of course: utilize both sides of the notebook, reserve a minimum number of pages per topic, keep an index with free pages, etc. But there are some hardware ones as well, I'm trying Atoma notebooks (https://atoma.be) these days.
Paper is just too inconvenient to use for long term storage and revisiting imo. It's better suited as a transitive storage medium, either for short lived stuff like tasks, checklists, or acting as a writing inbox that you later capture into a digital medium.
Even with the capture downside, I don't think that I can do away with paper and pen. There's something invigorating about using paper that no keyboard or screen could replicate. More in touch with your brain and with your own words, that your feelings flow better into the ink. It is something that makes me enjoy writing.
I've considered e-ink devices in the past but I don't see much value from them. They're a fancier way to draft things at best, in my case, and a worse PKMS/Todo list if anything compared to dedicated tools. I'm paying for an extra device that gives me a bunch of things I won't use, anyways.
I use a Boox E-Ink tablet with the built-in handwriting notes app. It exports to PDF and I can copy everything to my Debian machine via ADB. I absolutely love it. E-Ink is close enough to paper for me, and the EMR (Wacom) stylus is close enough to a pen for me.
I am aware that people don't trust the Chinese. Which brands do you trust?
As another poster mentioned about the ReMarkable, the Boox works just fine offline. I do use mine online, e.g. for reading HN as I prefer the E-Ink screen for text. But as for note-taking, everything I do is offline, including moving the PDF documents to the desktop via ADB.
It's not about their Chineseness. They're notorious, unapologetic GPL violators with a poor track record when it comes to privacy and general integrity (paying for reviews, etc)..
Thank you. The GPL violations are a long-term problem, most agreed, but the lack of a privacy policy is an immediate problem. What frustrates me is that I'm usually not complacent about such matters, but I purchased the device during a period of extreme time pressure so I never got around to checking that. In fact the device was specifically purchased to help me better reduce my cognitive load - which it does.
I just wrote to the company in the Feedback feature of the device, asking about where the privacy policy can be found and giving an example of where the privacy policy is found in my Samsung device.
Thank you for making me aware of the issue. I was vaguely aware that there were GPL concerns with Boox, but I did not realize that there is no stated privacy policy - technical potential for exploitation aside.
I think the accepted remedy is to root the device, then use a root-level firewall to prevent it from phoning home. But Boox can of course snap their fingers and undo that any time, and rooting comes with its own set of security concerns. In any case, you're strongly advised to never enter a password on the device using the on-screen keyboard, and rotate any credentials you may have already entered.
I was in the same position as you when I started my law degree!
My solution was:
- Take notes on paper
- Scan with Genius Scan (free) or similar
- Upload to Microsoft Document Intelligence on Azure to get character recognition and a PDF output (standard OCR sucks for handwriting; also free for up to like 50 docs a month)
- Tidy up the text and store in Mediawiki long-term (you can also upload a copy of the OCR enabled PDF) (FOSS)
I totally agree, I own a few fountain pens and Midori notebooks and for my lecture notes I just enter flow state using those.
I've recently gotten an iPad and the most effective use case for it is to open up an infinite canvas and do active recall by drawing everything from (mostly) memory allowing me to find more connections, avenues to explore, and debate an idea.
Eventually, I have to put those connections back into prose but I haven't gotten to that yet.
I love taking notes by hand for better retention, but (my) longhand is just too slow. It's also an inconvenient format for representing a hierachy or graph of connections.
Anyone else into what my high school biology teacher loved referring to as "pseudo-arachnomorphic diagrams" (Mind Maps[1] / Spider Diagrams)?
They're still my primary paper-based realtime note taking method. They seemed to get a lot of attention a couple of decades ago, but I don't hear them mentioned much recently.
Lots of online/local Mind Map tools available, but I've never really gelled with them (though you do get self-organisation of the nodes!). Once in the digital realm I'm more likely to make notes in Markdown.
The slowness is a feature, not a bug. It gives your brain time to chew on it a little bit, digesting the information and storing it away instead of just copy-pasting.
Speed-hacks like shorthand and stenographers' machines are for copying exactly what was said, not consuming and understanding it. I would be very surprised if there were not very old studies moldering in a paper journal somewhere investigating the information retention of secretaries / stenographers compared to "naive" note-takers.
I recently started journaling by hand and was somewhat frustrated with the excruciatingly slow speed versus typing. Eventually, I realized that the slowness was, as you said, a feature. It forces you to think. You have no choice but to take time with your words. Sometimes brevity is a gift (one I usually don't have).
I migrated to fountain pens and haven't looked back. Partially, it's because I enjoy the experience itself as much as writing, but partially it's because they've forced me to become even more deliberate.
Same principle applies to, e.g., Leica cameras. Yes, they're pricey (absurdly so), but the lack of features, the slow speed, and the lack of configuration contributes to me improving my photography. It doesn't make me a better photographer, but it gives me the time and space to focus on being one, rather than just firehosing my camera at whatever is in front of me. It makes my photography intentional rather than reactive.
I think you just explained the opposite—that, yes, it does make you a better photographer. You've just described everything that it has done, which is continually improving your skill set and your thought process(es) that go into your creative work. Now that I understand the process, I love reading stories from others who have learned the same lesson: Deliberate slowness gives you time to think, time to plan, and time to breathe.
That is an experience you can't get any other way. That experience, also, pays forward in other areas of life.
I'm noticing the same thing with journaling. I still enjoy writing on my computers, of course, because I'm a much faster typist. However, I've noticed the deliberately slow pace of writing by hand has become transformative (slowly) over time. I'd imagine you're noticing the same thing. It's about self-improvement more than the hobby itself.
For me, it came at an opportune time: I started teaching an adult Bible study last year, and between journaling with fountain pens and teaching, it's forced me to get rid of some annoying habits that I might have held on to otherwise.
A sidenote along these lines - I've recently done an MSc, and found that the default approach to lectures is now to present slide decks. One of the profs, however, delivers a more traditional lecture, writing everything on a blackboard. I've found the second style far more effective, largely because writing caps the rate at which information can be conveyed. Because slides have no such bottleneck, I've found they're often misused and overladen with information which is skipped over too quickly.
+1 Deciding what to write is the critical step. You can get it with careful typing, but it's harder because you can type fast enough to skip that step.
It gives your brain time, but reality may not give you that time.
Someone who is typing a fast paced one time lecture, who can then take their time afterward to digest, is going to do much better than the "slowness is a feature" hand writer.
I've seen this first-hand with people taking handwritten notes in meetings
The learning curve is very gentle, you could learn it in a day. Honestly the hardest part is getting used to reading it fluently.
You can also look into various systems of abbreviations developed for telegraph (Evans basic English code), or you could look into using Yublin, which is basically taking all 2-letter combinations and assigning the most common 676 English words to them. Personally I like the idea of Yublin, with the addition of suffixes to modify common words so the word "add" might be "ad" in Yublin, but to make it "addition" you might turn it into "adn" and to further modify it to "additionally" you could write "adnly". This way you get more words out of your limited number of bigrams instead of polluting it with a word plus all it's commonly used variations. Write that shit in Orthic and you'll be flying.
> Anyone else into what my high school biology teacher loved referring to as "pseudo-arachnomorphic diagrams" (Mind Maps[1] / Spider Diagrams)?
Yes! Nearly all my notes are mind-map-ish. I’m a visual thinker/planner with ADHD and mind-map style “spatial notes” are the only ones that make sense to me when writing and reviewing later. I’ve tried a few methods of moving this process to digital over the years but nothing sticks like pen & paper.
Thanks, though I think part of longhard feeling labourious these days is RSI sadly. I did try to correct my scrawl for effort and legibility a while ago, but it just wouldn't stick!
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the Cornell Notes method which is practically the same thing as what this author describes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes
I retain information better when taking notes by hand. However, being able to attach an image and search is absolutely required for me, hence why I use digital notes at work.
I can keep years of notes in a file which I can take and access anywhere whenever I want.
This is all good advice but one thing it doesn't touch on is: which pen and notebook?
I like the pilot precision v5 pens because they come in a lot of different colors and the point is very fine.
For notebooks, I prefer the Leuchtturm 1917 series. They come with page numbers, a space for TOC, a pocket in the back for stuff, two book marks, and lots of different sizes and colors and page layouts.
That's important because the other important thing about hand notes for me is one book per topic, and keep them different colors because they will pile up and it helps with differentiating them.
For memorizing stuff, I use pen and lighting markers. This works quite well, and they are easy; I can quickly memorize things that way.
However had, for anything else I use the computer, and I style everything the way I need via HTML+CSS for the most part. I don't use HTML directly but a simpler and easier to use template, which is programmable (via ruby). There I also make use of javascript and have a multitude of effects to use. I can use the browser to research past content I stored and it is visually pleasing. And it takes not as long as handwriting either. So while I do use pen and paper still and probably will for the rest of my life, I am mostly in the digital era myself. I don't understand why I'd want to use pen and paper. Granted, I have to archive a lot of things, but I use various USB sticks and USB-connectable harddiscs; these don't take that much space away, compared to pen and paper written stuff or other hardcopy books. I don't think I will go back to the only-pen and only-paper, ever. I am not saying digital-only has only benefits, but if I compare all advantages and disadvantages then the digital lifestyle has more benefits. For instance, I don't need to store hardcopy books anymore (I still have them, I still use them, I still like them, but whenever I am about to purchase anything anew, I ask myself whether I want to have physical space be occupied by a book. Often the answer is no, if I can just use a .pdf instead.)
I keep hearing this from time to time, and hey, if taking notes by hand helps you, go for it. More power to you.
But I'm not you. What works for you may not be a panacea. I work best with notes in a text editor, in markdown. I like to be able to move thoughts around, rearrange them, refine them. That also makes me remember them better. Handwritten notes are not conducive to that.
I am 43, and for my entire life I have hated writing by hand. I am sure a lot of it has to do with how I hold my pen/pencil but I have never been able to change my grip. My hand hurts and my writing is barely legible. I just hate it.
I have tried over the years to get into hand writing and note taking. It never works. I am so grateful for typing, it has saved my life for decades. I can type ridiculously fast, and it doesn't wear me out.
I have finally stopped apologizing for this, or thinking something is wrong with me. It just isn't for me
I have tons of different notebooks each designated for different purposes: notes on books I'm reading, my random thoughts, writing ideas, specific research projects, and many more. That leads to a lot of time spent trying to find and recall quotes, notes, and ideas, but with the system I laid out here, it's really no trouble at all.
This part takes the system beyond just needing ambient light to needing either to stay home or carry a backpack. Use perforated notebooks so you can tear out pages and sort them into binders. I prefer to categorize after filling a notebook for spaced repetition.
I hated writing by hand, but I got into fountain pens and that really helped change my note taking habits. I mostly write letters, but recently I’ve taken up writing notes during meetings. I loathe doing so, but my FP addiction really helps.
Writing is very good for understanding, but I needed help to improve the utility of the notes instead of just forgetting them forever, especially any notes I reuse or research a lot.
So I also put those into a text manager and custom keyboard so I can one tap paste them whenever I need. I use the app Snippeta for this.
Taking notes by hand makes you better thinker and more organized.
I use my notebook like everybody else, but list of topics I wanna check late and don't wanna forget, I do like Japanese Mangas, from the last page towards the first page.
So I check which topic I wanna check at the end of the notebook, then I go back to the first pages to cover it, be it a task at work, a hobby project, etc.
And of course, work has its own notebook, hobbies has its own notebook, DIY has its own notebook.
That way I keep things organized, and allows me to draft thoughts before spending time actually looking into them.
I love to use a paper notebook for fast notes, random thoughts, and to capture tasks (something similar to a GTD inbox). With it, I use a small system of symbols (some degree of similarity with the bullet journal method).
The only issue with paper is the edition. My solution has been to use a compact, slim ring binder with a notebook-like feel. If required, you can move sheets to reorganize content, move the most important ones to another place, etc. Until now, the best alternative that I have found is the Kokuyo Campus Smart Ring Binder.
I haven't used pen and paper for note taking for years and years now. I used to keep a lot of notes in markdown organized into folders (used obsidian for a bit but was just easier to do in Vim). These days I don't take that many notes, usually only to capture key points/decisions in discussions but usually are pretty short lived. I find things get captured in other forms such that notes aren't really needed that much anymore.
I keep notes in Obsidian...but when I'm genuinely studying a text I write out a precis as an outline in my bullet journal, and later transcribe it. That means that I engage with the material at least twice: once when I first read it, and once when I transcribe it. And yes, writing it by hand genuinely does help. And then, when I want to look at it later, my original notes are in my journal, and my transcription is available digitally.
> it can be done basically anywhere there's ambient light,
With a digital tool you don't even need light!
Curious whether the "OCR as soon as possible"workflow would maintain the engaging benefits of paper while eliminating all the issues in the rest of the article
I love writing things down when I brainstorm; it helps me think.
But taking notes by hand is not feasible for me. My handwriting is atrocious (always has been); if I want to write a nice-looking text, I have to slow down significantly, and then it becomes too slow.
Also, searching, indexing, and everything - it works better with digital.
99 comments
Regarding the space management, there are many solutions straight out of the programming world, of course: utilize both sides of the notebook, reserve a minimum number of pages per topic, keep an index with free pages, etc. But there are some hardware ones as well, I'm trying Atoma notebooks (https://atoma.be) these days.
Everything is related.
- 4 pages at the back are reserved for index.
- Daily journal starts at the back.
- There is no obligation to have regular entries in the daily journal.
- ◦ denotes a past event; ◦ hh:mm denotes an upcoming or past event.
- → denotes a task.
- "circled" → denotes a completed task.
- strikeghrough denotes a cancelled or refiled task.
- ¿ optional task, not sure about something ?
- "-" is for all types of second-level bullets.
(As a side note, I mostly do task organization on the computer, but sometimes in a journal as well.)
- Topics start at the front.
- Topics are free-form.
- A new year starts a new journal. (I don't care for the new year resolutions though. At best, a list of side quests I'd like to do.)
Even with the capture downside, I don't think that I can do away with paper and pen. There's something invigorating about using paper that no keyboard or screen could replicate. More in touch with your brain and with your own words, that your feelings flow better into the ink. It is something that makes me enjoy writing.
I've considered e-ink devices in the past but I don't see much value from them. They're a fancier way to draft things at best, in my case, and a worse PKMS/Todo list if anything compared to dedicated tools. I'm paying for an extra device that gives me a bunch of things I won't use, anyways.
As another poster mentioned about the ReMarkable, the Boox works just fine offline. I do use mine online, e.g. for reading HN as I prefer the E-Ink screen for text. But as for note-taking, everything I do is offline, including moving the PDF documents to the desktop via ADB.
See:
- https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/onyx...
- https://www.reddit.com/r/ereader/comments/13e8bw3/psa_onyxbo...
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23735962
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31247982
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37665408
- https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0...
etc...
I just wrote to the company in the Feedback feature of the device, asking about where the privacy policy can be found and giving an example of where the privacy policy is found in my Samsung device.
Thank you for making me aware of the issue. I was vaguely aware that there were GPL concerns with Boox, but I did not realize that there is no stated privacy policy - technical potential for exploitation aside.
My solution was:
- Take notes on paper
- Scan with Genius Scan (free) or similar
- Upload to Microsoft Document Intelligence on Azure to get character recognition and a PDF output (standard OCR sucks for handwriting; also free for up to like 50 docs a month)
- Tidy up the text and store in Mediawiki long-term (you can also upload a copy of the OCR enabled PDF) (FOSS)
- File paper notes
- Throw paper notes once module is complete
I've recently gotten an iPad and the most effective use case for it is to open up an infinite canvas and do active recall by drawing everything from (mostly) memory allowing me to find more connections, avenues to explore, and debate an idea.
Eventually, I have to put those connections back into prose but I haven't gotten to that yet.
Anyone else into what my high school biology teacher loved referring to as "pseudo-arachnomorphic diagrams" (Mind Maps[1] / Spider Diagrams)?
They're still my primary paper-based realtime note taking method. They seemed to get a lot of attention a couple of decades ago, but I don't hear them mentioned much recently.
Lots of online/local Mind Map tools available, but I've never really gelled with them (though you do get self-organisation of the nodes!). Once in the digital realm I'm more likely to make notes in Markdown.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
Speed-hacks like shorthand and stenographers' machines are for copying exactly what was said, not consuming and understanding it. I would be very surprised if there were not very old studies moldering in a paper journal somewhere investigating the information retention of secretaries / stenographers compared to "naive" note-takers.
I migrated to fountain pens and haven't looked back. Partially, it's because I enjoy the experience itself as much as writing, but partially it's because they've forced me to become even more deliberate.
I'd highly recommend it!
That is an experience you can't get any other way. That experience, also, pays forward in other areas of life.
I'm noticing the same thing with journaling. I still enjoy writing on my computers, of course, because I'm a much faster typist. However, I've noticed the deliberately slow pace of writing by hand has become transformative (slowly) over time. I'd imagine you're noticing the same thing. It's about self-improvement more than the hobby itself.
For me, it came at an opportune time: I started teaching an adult Bible study last year, and between journaling with fountain pens and teaching, it's forced me to get rid of some annoying habits that I might have held on to otherwise.
Someone who is typing a fast paced one time lecture, who can then take their time afterward to digest, is going to do much better than the "slowness is a feature" hand writer.
I've seen this first-hand with people taking handwritten notes in meetings
https://orthic.shorthand.fun/
The learning curve is very gentle, you could learn it in a day. Honestly the hardest part is getting used to reading it fluently.
You can also look into various systems of abbreviations developed for telegraph (Evans basic English code), or you could look into using Yublin, which is basically taking all 2-letter combinations and assigning the most common 676 English words to them. Personally I like the idea of Yublin, with the addition of suffixes to modify common words so the word "add" might be "ad" in Yublin, but to make it "addition" you might turn it into "adn" and to further modify it to "additionally" you could write "adnly". This way you get more words out of your limited number of bigrams instead of polluting it with a word plus all it's commonly used variations. Write that shit in Orthic and you'll be flying.
Food for thought.
> Anyone else into what my high school biology teacher loved referring to as "pseudo-arachnomorphic diagrams" (Mind Maps[1] / Spider Diagrams)?
Yes! Nearly all my notes are mind-map-ish. I’m a visual thinker/planner with ADHD and mind-map style “spatial notes” are the only ones that make sense to me when writing and reviewing later. I’ve tried a few methods of moving this process to digital over the years but nothing sticks like pen & paper.
2. Obtain paper and ink that works well with the pen.
3. Practice cursive handwriting.
Possibly get a 2x improvement in speed.
I can keep years of notes in a file which I can take and access anywhere whenever I want.
I like the pilot precision v5 pens because they come in a lot of different colors and the point is very fine.
For notebooks, I prefer the Leuchtturm 1917 series. They come with page numbers, a space for TOC, a pocket in the back for stuff, two book marks, and lots of different sizes and colors and page layouts.
That's important because the other important thing about hand notes for me is one book per topic, and keep them different colors because they will pile up and it helps with differentiating them.
However had, for anything else I use the computer, and I style everything the way I need via HTML+CSS for the most part. I don't use HTML directly but a simpler and easier to use template, which is programmable (via ruby). There I also make use of javascript and have a multitude of effects to use. I can use the browser to research past content I stored and it is visually pleasing. And it takes not as long as handwriting either. So while I do use pen and paper still and probably will for the rest of my life, I am mostly in the digital era myself. I don't understand why I'd want to use pen and paper. Granted, I have to archive a lot of things, but I use various USB sticks and USB-connectable harddiscs; these don't take that much space away, compared to pen and paper written stuff or other hardcopy books. I don't think I will go back to the only-pen and only-paper, ever. I am not saying digital-only has only benefits, but if I compare all advantages and disadvantages then the digital lifestyle has more benefits. For instance, I don't need to store hardcopy books anymore (I still have them, I still use them, I still like them, but whenever I am about to purchase anything anew, I ask myself whether I want to have physical space be occupied by a book. Often the answer is no, if I can just use a .pdf instead.)
But I'm not you. What works for you may not be a panacea. I work best with notes in a text editor, in markdown. I like to be able to move thoughts around, rearrange them, refine them. That also makes me remember them better. Handwritten notes are not conducive to that.
I have tried over the years to get into hand writing and note taking. It never works. I am so grateful for typing, it has saved my life for decades. I can type ridiculously fast, and it doesn't wear me out.
I have finally stopped apologizing for this, or thinking something is wrong with me. It just isn't for me
This part takes the system beyond just needing ambient light to needing either to stay home or carry a backpack. Use perforated notebooks so you can tear out pages and sort them into binders. I prefer to categorize after filling a notebook for spaced repetition.
So I also put those into a text manager and custom keyboard so I can one tap paste them whenever I need. I use the app Snippeta for this.
I use my notebook like everybody else, but list of topics I wanna check late and don't wanna forget, I do like Japanese Mangas, from the last page towards the first page.
So I check which topic I wanna check at the end of the notebook, then I go back to the first pages to cover it, be it a task at work, a hobby project, etc.
And of course, work has its own notebook, hobbies has its own notebook, DIY has its own notebook.
That way I keep things organized, and allows me to draft thoughts before spending time actually looking into them.
The only issue with paper is the edition. My solution has been to use a compact, slim ring binder with a notebook-like feel. If required, you can move sheets to reorganize content, move the most important ones to another place, etc. Until now, the best alternative that I have found is the Kokuyo Campus Smart Ring Binder.
[1] Lion Kimbro. How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think. 2003 https://users.speakeasy.net/~lion/nb/book.pdf
> it can be done basically anywhere there's ambient light,
With a digital tool you don't even need light!
Curious whether the "OCR as soon as possible"workflow would maintain the engaging benefits of paper while eliminating all the issues in the rest of the article
If I do anything to do with math, I need paper; anything else is in markdown.
Recommendation: There are folders that you can add pages to; that way you do not worry about space.