Comment by sturakov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sturakov | Hacker News Reader

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Hey there, I've enjoyed your comment. I think we're kindred spirits when it comes to using paper for putting thoughts down without distractions.

Mind if I ask you two questions?

I've been struggling with finding a way to reconcile using paper and the digital realm.

On the one hand, I find sketching out ideas and writing out thoughts a lot more enjoyable on paper. I also seem to distill what I am trying to communicate a lot better too! And like you've mentioned, there are a lot of negatives to using software to achieve the same end.

- Complexity of interface

- The software runs on a machine that is capable of distracting me way too easy

- Notifications

But how do you deal with having a lot of paper floating around, filled with ideas and sketches of stuff? I guess, how do you organize them all in a way that isn't just organized clutter?

I've been digitizing all my work with a Document Feeder Scanner, which works alright in the sense that it gets my work onto the machine, but I feel like I'm philosophically missing the point.

Can you comment with some thoughts perhaps? Thank you.

Actually there are two points here:

1. The creative process 2. Archiving/documenting

The amount of paper used in 1. can be very high, but essentially the key point is to let go of all your sketches when you are done distilling them. They are material for the trashbin. This may sound hard but it makes sense when you have a separate step for archiving, which means step 2.

Step 2. means, I distill all the lump of paper into what is required for the project at hand or worth keeping. This depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it means just putting a sheet of paper next to the other bureaucratic stuff, most of the time it means writing a project documentation or "specification" document, sometimes writing an outline for a paper or an abstract. This may be grunt work and the tools may suck, but that's OK since it is separated from the creative process and for the purpose of documentation, not creation.

If you have multiple projects at the same time and find yourself switching around often, make some organized space. There are these stackable plastic things where you can put stacks of paper in, not sure how they are called in english but I do use them to have 3 or 4 separated stacks that I can just pull out or put away when needed.

Maybe the key point is to be able and let go of old stuff. Taking half a hour once a week and browsing through the notes, evaluating and rejecting old/obsolete stuff helps too. Also, the "archiving step" acts as a filter. If you find yourself not having time/incentive to archive a certain idea or sketch, it is probably not worth it and can go to the trash.

Keep in mind, that Ideas (when they are just Ideas) are worthless. They need to be realized and one can only realize so much in a finite amount of time.

I sincerely appreciate your response and the points you've pointed out.

The process you talk about makes a lot of sense. The creative process separated from archiving/documentation is a good distinction, thinking about it. I can see how it moves from paper to digital better now.

I'm reflecting on the key point, of being able to let go of old stuff. That, combined with a limited time in the day (not to mention motivation / discipline / incentive) makes your point a very hard one to swallow.

I think that rationally, it makes sense. Limited time means we can only do so much in a day. Emotionally, it feels like I should be able to digitize all the ideas and do them "later".

I'm not sure where I'm getting at with this, but I wanted to say thank you for giving me some good advice on how to approach paper and digital for projects.

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