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Paper Notes

macwright.com

152 pointsingve72 comments

Most discussions on the topic would benefit from commenters (and article writers) to specify at the beginning of their text whether they write notes in order to also read them later, or whether notes are written without a clear goal of revisiting them later.

I like to write notes but barely read them later. If I write on paper, I still take benefit from writing notes I will never read. Writing stuff down is like a forcing function that helps me process information and means I will remember them later, better.

As such I don't mind about paper notes not being searchable, indexable, available at random access on many devices, etc. But I can totally see that other folks have different needs there.

Very true for me too. I write paper notes ordered by time on subjects that I need immediate understanding on. To preserve important conclusions or insights I add them to my digital notes which are organised by topic. I liked the author's idea of having a separate topic based notebook as well to summarise journals. Paper is so much more inviting than any screen I've used so far.

Best luck I've ever had "taking notes" was borrowing an idea from a former co-worker. He just rubber ducked everything in a personal Slack channel. You get time-centric notes, with the ability to link backwards to former threads of thought. I wanted to build a note app around this idea, but the article links to The Archive https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ which is essentially that idea.

<shameless plug> Here’s another attempt at the threading idea that I did to scratch my own itch (it is now quite popular): https://www.instanote.io

Also did a Show HN some time ago which was received well.

Slack actually supports this directly, just send a DM to yourself.

> This is your space. Draft messages, list your to-dos, or keep links and files handy. You can also talk to yourself here, but please bear in mind you’ll have to supply both sides of the conversation.

Appears at the top of the self-chat =)

Nice thing about a (public) rubber ducking channel is you can just send a message to someone saying e.g. “I tried fixing the problem staring here… does that all make sense?”

I do that by sending myself messages in Telegram, it's quite handy!

I don't really relate to the author's motivation. Who is "the kind of person who carries a notebook"? Surely it's someone who has something to write down, it's an odd perspective wanting to force yourself to take notes.

I took diligent paper notes for the first three years of my PhD. Lab notes, research ideas, mad science, meeting notes, presentation drafts, diagrams, graphs, specifications, diary entries, poems, songs, tirades, rants and drawings...

In the end it was only marginally useful, mostly to recall what was said in meetings. It's too much data, hard to search and 99% of it ends up useless. Really their main use was to work through problems and ideas as I was writing them, as well as to look back at past me and frown at how stupid I was.

Now I've switched to an e-ink solution (Remarkable) because I've got dozens of paper notebooks that I don't know what to do with and the waste of paper gave me a mental block over time that made me reticent to write down more stuff.

I do agree with him that notebooks should be append only, anything else is a lost battle which will force you to censor yourself to keep things clean. Unless you use binders, then you have a better control of the paper stack.

> Who is "the kind of person who carries a notebook"?

I took it to mean “I decided to keep track of my random thoughts and things not to forget rather than be one of those people with scraps of paper and who loses track of things.”

In that read, “notebook” is synecdoche

>Who is "the kind of person who carries a notebook"?

Statistically either a hipster pretending to be deep, or a "get things done" cult member.

This sounds like a needlessly harsh take and on something as benign as "having pen and paper regularly".

Exactly. What about the forgetful but responsible people?

What about my first word "statistically"? :-)

As someone who struggles with impulsive speaking in meetings, I use notes as a buffer between my brain and mouth. I jot my thoughts down when others are talking. Instead of wanting to interrupt them to speak, this gives me time to consider what I should say-- and if it is actually important enough to say without having to worry that I will forget things. It also gives others a chance to talk and perhaps express what I was thinking anyway.

This is a great strategy!

Really nice tip. I also struggle with this. Will try to use it.

I’m a GTD cultist and I throw everything into Drafts on my iPhone. I’ve tried keeping a paper notebook with me but it just doesn’t suit my way of doing things.

In other words, they’re not related.

>In other words, they’re not related.

They're not tied in an absolute "if and only if" relationship (that is, there are exceptions), but they are absolutely related, hence the "statistically".

If you're going to use the term statistically you should probably back it up with a source citation.

> the waste of paper gave me a mental block

Serious question—not a pointed remark disguised as a question—but what's the impact of that waste paper vs the what goes into a latest gen reMarkable? Where's the inflection point where a device like that figuratively "pays for itself" (in terms of reduced environmental harms) over pen and paper?

Even if those numbers are good, I assume that the human rights abuses associated with paper production are minimal in comparison to the the kinds of things happening to support the manufacture of modern consumer electronics. Am I wrong?

I imagine the stats come out better when using something like an iPad for notes which replaces other electronics you would have bought.

Good point. More on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23018923

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21020682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20320001

Found an interesting article on the topic: https://slate.com/technology/2011/09/paper-versus-the-ipad-i...

According to the article, if you already have an iPad, it’s better to take notes on that than to use paper, by a lot. 7 hours of iPad note taking equals 1 piece of paper (in carbon dioxide equivalents).

However if you’re buying the iPad just for the purpose of taking notes, it is probably better to just use paper. Unless you’re going to use more than roughly 8,000 a 13,000 pieces of paper (depending on the type).

So as far as the remarkable goes, my guess would be that paper wins unless you take an insane amount of notes.

There are obviously other factors to consider when deciding between remarkable and paper. I just found these numbers interesting and have absolutely no problem with people who take notes digitally. I have way too many computers/tablets/phones/who knows how many other electronics to be judgmental of this sort of thing.

That's a good question, I was wondering about it as well. I would assume the paper wins easily in terms of CO2, but in terms of human rights abuse I wouldn't be so sure. But I bought it for my personal gain, not the planet's. The problem is that, rational or not, if I don't have the tablet I feel guilty every time I pick up a piece of paper and it's a detriment to my work. If I have the tablet, the cost is essentially paid in full so the mental cost of a new page is null.

During lockdown I got a cheap Huion drawing tablet for my desktop Linux and it has been great for figuring programming or mathematics problems out "on paper" but with non of the cons of running out of paper. I use the xournal++ app.

I had never heard of this, so I googled it. Very interesting. The drawing aspect is heavily pushed, but it looked like it also runs Windows 10 Pro... can you comment on how it runs as a computer? Could it be used to make videos, with say, DaVinci Reolve, or Openshot? Does O365 work on it, and web browsing, etc.? Thank you.

I have a Wacom which I believe is similar usage to Huion mentioned by OP.

I have made videos by simply opening up gimp, setting up appropriate screen and background, and then using Camtasia to screen record my writing.

Biggest issue for me is that I like to use multiple monitors. Between two monitors and laptop screen, there are three monitors. The tablet acts like a mouse that extends across all three screens, so the aspect ratio gets messed up (the middle third of the tracker affects the middle screen, so tiny movements side to side there are quite large on the monitor).

There is probably a better fix, but I end up disconnecting my laptop and going to separate workspace when I want to record. Not a big deal, but annoying That I can’t just plug and go if I want to use drawing tablet randomly in a project.

Paper is an always-there, always-on, never-obsoleted, never uncharged, high-light/low-light, durable, unbreakable device with inegrated modular sharding and really, really, really shitty search features (though creative indexing can get around this somewhat).

(Some of the newer e-ink devices ... are starting to address a few of paper's strengths, particularly use under brightly-lit environments, increased durability, and whilst not never needing charging, both going long stretches on a charge and reviving quickly.)

There remain risks. Few paper-based notekeeping systems suffer from integrated keyloggers, data exfiltration, or ransomeware attacks.

What makes paper far more useful, I'm discovering several years in to a still-only-semi-organised Bullet Journal practice, is indexing.

Find a way to highlight where relevant data are kept, and note things there. The Bullet Journal itself strongly leverages, but is not limited to, time-based organisation. My strategy generally is to begin temporal content at the front of the journal, conceptual or topical content at the back, working toward the middle. (Exceptions to both rules can of course exist.) The index, which begins at the front (and can be extended to any arbitrary location within the journal, though I've found 1--2 pages more than sufficient, having allocated 4 initially) points to either specific items or waypoints (e.g., monthly spreads, possibly weekly if you want to go that way).

There seem to be two primary schools of BuJo use. One is principally concerned with aesthetic. I'm concerned with utility. My journals are brutally practical, and anything but works of art. They're useful, however. (And I hope to make them more so with time.)

Having recently acquired a larger e-ink device (Onyx BOOX), I am finding its notetaking capabilities ... surprisingly attractive. (I'd bought it strictly as an e-book / e-article reader, it does very well at that also, of course.) It's become an idea-development space. But isn't seriously challenging paper yet in other realms.

Paper notes are my central knowledge base, and I consider my notes one of my most valuable resources. Going back to notes I've made in the past is one of the best memory jogs I've found.

The act of writing things down makes me much more likely to remember them, and it gives me a way to knowledge dump that is completely freeform and follows my train of thought.

Typing them up later into refined notes solidifies everything and becomes part of my organization, but the notes themselves serve as the best way to remember details and major concepts that I've found.

> Taking notes is useless without a place to put them when you’re done.

This isn't always true. I'd often take notes knowing I'd throw them away later. In those cases, the note-taking process itself served as the purpose, since it would help me learn and remember the content.

I agree that notes aren't really useless even if you know you'll toss them out.

I maintain a notebook that I write ideas and sketch solutions in. I don't treat it as something I'll revisit more than a month from now. I treat it more as a workspace for sketching out ideas and coming back to them a day or a week later to recall what was in my headspace. Usually I'll commit to a solution one way or another based on my notes and I usually don't revisit them after that.

I think if I treated notes as "revisit this later" I'd be a little pickier about what I wrote down to reduce the noise, but that just prevents me from using the notebook for what I want, which is a place to brainstorm and sketch ideas.

I used to carry a notebook with me everywhere. I used it to take notes when in meetings, draft ideas or follow eating/sleeping goals.

I liked the idea of writing with a pen and the feeling of paper under my fingers, but it had too many drawbacks: taking notes on paper is slow, you can't edit/format, etc...

Then, after spending months trying out various note taking apps, I switched to having a bunch of markdown files inside folders, and sync them using Github. I just use folders for clients/projects and follow a file name rule of `YYYY-MM-DD-topic.md` for my files, that's it.

This is MUCH more convenient. I can quickly scan/search for what I'm looking for, and I can use Markdown to add/edit lists, paragraphs, tasks, you name it. If I ever want to take a note, I open a terminal and enter "notes" and bam! VS Code opens with a special workspace I've designed for it (another themes, most of the extensions turned off), and whenever I need to sync my notes I simply hit Shift + Ctrl + B to automatically add/commit/push to Github.

If I ever need to access my notes on the web, I simply log into Github and the files are even beautifully rendered. And if I feel the need to consult the history, it's there.

How do you do update your notes on your phone?

This looks like a very early-stage rediscovery of the zettelkast note-taking technique. I'd recommend reading up on it more, if you are interested in taking atomic notes, organizing them, and building connections among notes to discover connections over time.

https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/

As a math and CS student, switching to an e-ink tablet (reMarkable 1 specifically) has made a world of difference in increasing organization and I can freely use it as a scratchpad without worrying about waste or misplacing it. This semester, I found myself constantly referring back to my class notes and keeping in mind that page number is correlated to time, it was convenient to jump to a concept based on recency. Being able to rearrange things between pages also greatly improved the value I've gotten out of my notes. (Note an iPad would work equally well, but I wanted something more dedicated for note-taking).

I try to avoid paper notes, and don't mind having a laptop with me almost all the time (I'm also not fond of smartphones for notes), but when I do need a little paper notebook...

If I'm bothering with a paper notebook (for information, not artistic sketching), it's probably important, and possibly in a messy environment. So I go with the Rite in the Rain brand notebook, together with a Fisher Space Pen. Though I still don't like the coated feeling to the paper.

For work, notes of all kinds are electronic and shared throughout engs&ops and time, so either go into the git monorepo (usually in Markdown files, or embedded in source code files), or in GitLab Issues. If it's a one-time capture, not a note that will evolve, the filename tends to start with a date in sortable format (e.g., `20210517-foo-tech-background-prep-for-baz-meeting.md`).

For personal, I used to capture "quick document" notes organized based on timestamps and categories, with an emphasis on capturing some little idea or bit of information while it was in front of me, with minimal interruption to whatever else I was doing. Hit hotkey, just start typing or copy&paste very rapidly, and done. No naming files, organizing, etc. Here's one small Emacs thing to make that easier (maybe Org-Mode would be better): https://www.neilvandyke.org/emacs-qd/

I don't know if the author would equate them, but I carry an eInk tablet (the reMarkable) with me most of the time. I write on it (in it?) every day for the most part. Best thing is, if I need to share something, a few simple clicks and the document is turned into text via OCR and everything else is a figure. Send it as a PDF.

At least for me, I've always found that doodling out problems helps me think through them a lot easier.

(author) - Yep, I have a few friends with remarkable tablets and generally adore eInk and could totally see them being a worthy alternative to field notes. Planning on getting one sometime, maybe when they come out with a v3 whenever that is.

First time I've heard of these and I love the idea but goddamn they're expensive! Do you feel like it was worth the cost for your use case?

Not OP but I used a remarkable a few times at my old job and it was slick, but I'm not sure I would really say I recommend it more than my trusty notebook and pen. The digitization was decent, though, and i'm sure it's only gotten better. I honestly think it's the type of thing you'd have to test out to know.

When you say the digitization is good, do you mean the OCR? Because I have always been ok with emailing a picture in an email and adding some keywords to the email to find it later. I am not saying that's is all anyone would ever need but I've been doing it forever and like the fact that it works with any writing surface (napkin, wet sand, etc). My handwriting seems to defeat even the best OCR so I've kind of given up on that route.

Yeah, it has a button you can hit in the UI that reads your handwriting and turns it into text. It’s pretty good, but my handwriting isn’t bad either.

For what it’s worth, I use my email and Bear notes the same way with my pen and paper. I don’t ever feel like I miss the remarkable.

I've had my Remarkable2 for about 40 days, and use it everyday. I use it for all my meeting notes, use it for planning, sketching out ideas, marking up PDFs. Add about 4 pages per day.

I love it. My favorite tool for thought I've added to the toolbelt in a long time (well, the M1's are also amazing). It's like magic. I can draw a diagram like I do on paper, but now drag select and then duplicate and quickly have thousands of glyphs. Very fun to think through ideas. My iPad Pro/Pencil is mostly for FaceTime now and the occasional marking up of a screen grab. Before this I would fill up about 4-6 paper graphing paper notebooks a year.

It was definitely expensive, but given how much it is improving my work, well worth it.

The subreddit has been very helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/

You mention moving from an iPad to remarkable. I have an iPad with a pencil right now and I feel pretty satisfied with it, but I’m curious about the remarkable. What do you think is better about the remarkable?

I don't have a reMarkable, but I use a Fujitsu Quaderno A4. For me, it's the eink screen that's made all the difference. Less eye strain, and a better writing feel. It's also helped keep me focused since the Quaderno, at least, has nothing else but pdfs and note-taking.

The iPad feels like writing on a whiteboard: fine, but not ideal. Writing on the reMarkable is significantly closer to paper, less distracting, and it feels easier on my wrists since I can rely a bit on the friction of the screen.

I definitely wouldn't buy it unless you have to write a lot (I'm a student, so this is the case with me), but I definitely enjoy it.

The feel is much better. More friction, feels like paper. I prefer eInk to a bright screen. No popups or distractions (same as if I was using pen and paper). It’s noticeably lighter. Simple software that does everything I need well. No need to fuss with apps.

I am interested in ReMarkable. This recent reddit post, is it your experience? What is happening with this lag?

https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/nemvjy/my...

I do notice some lag but not until I have over 10,000 or 100,000 glyphs when I'm prototyping data visualization ideas. Honestly it scales better than I was expecting, so my guess is they've optimized their loops and I'm pushing the hardware to the limit around that OOM, and that a Remarkable3 will fix it with faster hardware.

I bought one and returned it. I made the mistake of adopting loose-leaf paper several months before buying it. I assumed it would be a minor cost in the writing/reading experience for a major benefit in not having folders all over the place anymore; but (a) the w/r cost was way higher than I thought it would be, (b) I realized the folders weren’t that big a deal if you, you know, but them in a box or cabinet, and (c) it was just too expensive for that c/b spread.

I bought the Quaderno A4 for the bigger screen, and it is really nice how much it has changed things for me. I've started using it as an e-reader as well, and it's so versatile and great. Easy to share via wifi, bluetooth or nfc too

Both look very cool, but I could use one with a good camera to take pics and annotate or include in the note-taking, and that doesn't seem to be in either spec sheet.

Does anyone have any experience with one with a built-in camera or easy transfer between an Android device and the notebook? Thx!

Maybe look into Onyx Boox? They're another brand that actually runs like a full tablet so I'd assume they'd have a camera, though I'm not sure.

The BOOX generally does not include a camera. (I'm inclined to say "never".) It does have an onboard microphone, however.

I've personally been avoiding the Onyx Boox due to their flagrant violation of the GPL.

Every time someone asks for the source code to the open components, they claim people only ask because of Anti-China sentiment, and therefore won't honor the request.

Makes me wonder if they're hiding something in there.

Absolutely. That's why I went with the Quaderno over it, even if I had to import it from Japan.

Like other commenters, the reMarkable has been great for me. Much easier to organize notes by subject without needing to maintain an index and flip through pages (and the inevitable wear and tear on my most referred-to notes). Easier to get over the annoyance of wasting paper and notebook space on notes that wind up being useless. And I love the "send to reMarkable" Chrome plugin. (Just wish it had color.)

It probably also helps to be aware of why you're taking notes. "I wanted to be the kind of person who carried a paper notebook around" kinda takes that for granted; I'm guessing the author actually had more specific goals in mind, such as "retain more of what I experience" and/or "have more ideas"...

I think best app for macOS and iOS is https://fsnot.es

I've made the same mistake as the author, but unlike him, I have yet to realize my mistake ... until now. I need to get rid of Le Fancy Notebook and actually start taking notes as they appear and not wait until they are structured.

The irony is that I have already stared doing this at work, but with larger notbooks. After I started taking notes on paper, I not only feel that I have become more productive -- but I'm also less stressed about work. No more "I have to remember X and Y tomorrow", since I know this stuff is written down.

I like taking notes, but my laziness often wins. So the best I could do is write something on smartphone notes app as bullet points if I need to go back in Time.

> The only consistent structure is time. Notes go forward in time.

By writing in pencil, and using an eraser you can go back in time too.

There is value in seeing a bunch of faulty ideas that leads up to a good one. For this reason I keep almost all of my got dev/feature branches posted to an archival remote.

I keep branches like these around if nothing else to show other developers that come up with similar ideas just how it'll turn out in the end. It's been really useful a few times for stopping a ball before it starts moving that I know isn't going anywhere good.

FWIW I write with a fountain pen, mostly for comfort. I cross things out, keep my mistakes. Pencil lead/dust conducts electricity, so it's not really any good in a high voltage lab.

The insight is that you just write on the next page as time moves forward?

Am I missing something? Doesn’t seem particularly insightful…

The insight is largely in what not to do!

Personally I find indexing all my notes by time completely useless. What does it matter to me if I learned a software concept on Apr. 2 2017 or Sep. 8 2020? What is important for me is the ontology - the hierarchal structure of knowledge. If I have a sociology note (or question), I know where to look. Same with biology or physics or software. Knowledge in my head is not indexed by time; neither should my notes.

Author is not talking about indexing with time, rather they are talking about just writing with time.. viz you write forward as time flows forward.. You should definitely index by topic/content. Eg Cats: 1,5,7,8,22,23,55

Dogs: 2,3,9,10 ...

Except your learnings on the subject and in general are chronological.

I rarely refer to notes older than the past 2 weeks… it’s largely an exercise in helping memorization by writing.

Do you randomly go through old notes indexed by subject?

If I am adding a note to what I've taken notes on before (say antifragility or mimesis), I'll definitely review what I wrote previously just so I don't duplicate the same content. I don't broadly review my notes, only specifically sometimes if I want to consult my previous thoughts on a topic. Agreed that the main benefit is in writing down the note to begin with - this forces me to reflect on it, structure it, categorize it and formalize it.

Working in a bound codex format, it's very difficult to allocate specific space to specific projects. The simplest authoring or capturing mechanism is to simply move forward with time.

There are a few variations on this.

Alternate (or no) bindings give alternative organisational concepts. Loose-leaf (or insertion bindings), and index cards (no bindings, though these may also be ringed or otherwise organised, e.g., in pockets or sleeves), are two of the major ones.

You can work a book both forward and back. I discuss this briefly in another comment to this thread.

You can creat an index (or indices), or "spreads" dedicated to a specific topic. I use this on occasion in a bullet journal context, and one option is to have a spread of 2, 4, 6, 8, etc., pages on a topic (say, books to read, some concept, a specific activity log). If you run out of space, you create a new spread later in the book, and effectively have both index and linked-list chains that connect related blocks forward and back ("continued on page +xx", "continued from page -xx").

There are some fairly elaborate concepts for organising commonplace books, I ran across one such at the Internet Archive a while ago.

I've hit on the idea of effectively creating a round-robin type file in a bound form, where I note specific ideas, references, or projects, and advance the best of these periodically. So best 5 ideas of the week (or month), best 5 of the quarter, best 5 of the year, etc. (You can choose different counts or concepts, the essence is that over a given period you capture of interest a finite set of items Over time that selection should proceed to a high-quality curation. This gets around the tendency of such lists to grow without limit.)

And in the event all of this sounds terrifically or meticulously organised, it's not. I follow most of this in the breech, and am very far short of where I'd like to be. But that itself is one of the best aspects of this (or these) system(s): they're resilient. Follow them assiduously for weeks or months on end, then abandon them, then pick them up again. I'd never managed any previous journaling practice for more than a few months, maybe a year or so. This one's survivied several years, and expanded, with utility.

I also make extensive use of index cards (excellent non-temporal data capture), and of course, various online systems, though my inclination has been to rely less on these if possible.

In high school and college there's pressure to have one notebook per subject. If that's all you've done then it's really easy to assume that's a good idea for your personal notes.

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