How do you handle notes and ideas? | Hacker News Reader

How do you handle notes and ideas?

29 pointskabanossen61 comments

I write between ten and a hundred notes each day. Sometimes I add to an existing note or document. I have trouble working with notes, documents, ideas and streams of thought. Do you recognize this? How do you handle it?<p>Do you keep notes in one place? How do you accomplish that? How do you handle physical notes and non-physical notes? Do you try to gather all notes online? Where and how?

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I don't.

Like you, I probably have about a thousand different ideas and streams of thought during the course of a day. Unlike you, I don't write any of them down.

I do this because there is no way I'd get anything done if I didn't. I don't mind forgetting some key insight, because if it was important or relevant enough, it'll translate into sometime I will write down when the time is right. If not, it's probably something that I shouldn't bother wasting my time with. (That's not to suggest it isn't valuable).

You only have so many hours in the day to work on so many things. People like us need to ignore our own brain 80% of the time to be productive. It's a curse really.

Moleskine for quick notes, copied into an org-mode (http://orgmode.org/) if they're worth keeping.

Org-mode is nice for two reasons: first, it gives you a way to organize projects and sub-projects and meta-projects. Second, it's a reality check -- if you gave yourself a task that in no way advances any goals you've already stated, org-mode's organization scheme means that you end up either creating a new goal or admitting that a new project isn't worth your time.

I wasn't happy with any of the solutions out there so we built our own.

We treat notes as a stream and you categorize notes using hashcodes.

We have an iPhone and Android client so you can easily include pictures in your notes.

We aren't live yet, but will be in a few weeks. =)

If you want me to contact you when we are live sign up below,

https://3banana.com/doLogon.action?s=hn

</blatant self promotion :P>

You have my attention, and now my email address. Looking forward to seeing what you have to offer.

I appreciate the opportunity, thank you.

Fundamentally we view notes as a stream like a log file or Twitter.

You will have one place to easily and quickly dump everything, then be able to grep out the relevant information, and then late bind the decision on what to do with that information.

cool, you have my attention as well

Make a BlackBerry version and I'd love to check it out.

I hear that from all my friends with BB, we will have that very soon.

All depends on my caffeine intake. =)

You may want to check out

jott.com and reqall.com - both have iphone and blackberry apps

Thanks, we've looked at those before and they still seems a bit too complex. I do like their audio-text bridge.

We are building something even simpler, a personal syslog synced across phone/web/command line.

I have a single text file in a git repository, plus a Perl script that appends a timestamp to the file, opens it in vi, then commits (and pushes) the changes when I leave vi.

It's been working great since September 2000 (it was in subversion then I think, or maybe even CVS).

Search is via grep or vi.

I also have a tiny CGI script that prints the last n lines of it so I can refer to it from my phone's web browser.

For me, I'm a college student and that means I have a notebook with me most places anyways, and if its not a physical notebook, its my TabletPC. I usually write notes down in a reserved section in all my class notebooks if I'm in class and something pops up all of a sudden. Same goes for my TabletPC which I have my own venture notebook that I will scribble thoughts down in. On the go, I usually just keep it in my head because I don't yet have my own smartphone. Later in the evening after I've taken these notes I usually sit down and flip through my new ones and look at what I was thinking and figure out if its something worth expanding on or not. This goes a lot back to how you manage your time and the "shinny thing syndrom" (ADD).

It's a system that works pretty well for me, but everyone's different. I'm the kind of person who, even while other things are going on around me, am looking not only at the current state of my current venture but the direction and potential of that venture and others. Needless to say, I get a lot of those "oh crap, that's neat" when I'm out and about. The important part is really how you make use of those notes later on. I go through them on a nightly or bi-nightly basis and just browse through some of my ideas or concepts and figure out what's worth keeping track of or expanding and what's something to set aside as "good idea, but not now." It's important not to overwhelm yourself with notes going in a different direction.

The notes that are worth keeping and expanding I usually stick all together in a folder of some sort and they usually end up typed, expanded, and analyzed in a word document at some point in time where I've fully expanded on or refined an idea or perspective.

Warning, Mac-centric answer:

For task lists, I tried a bunch of things at one point, and only one that stuck was Taskpaper (http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper). It's so simple that I actually use it. I've been using it for about a year now on a sustained basis. It has simple emacs keybindings, like other OS X text editors, so that's nice for me too.

For ideas best expressed by complicated freehand drawings, I use pen and paper. I always carry an unruled (no lines) notebook for this purpose.

For a while I was using a small drawing tablet and Curio (http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/) for drawings, but it didn't stick. The GUI was a little too slow, and plugging in the tablet was too much of an extra step. A tablet Mac would solve this. (Yeah, yeah I could get a PC, but I'd rather avoid it if I can.)

When I take notes at a meeting or a talk, I use TextEdit (again, w/ simple emacs keybindings), and depend on spotlight to help me relocate things. I prepend all filenames with the date in <2 digit year><2 digit month><2 digit day> format, so by default things sort by date across filesystems etc. This is surprisingly useful.

EVERNOTE!

I can't say enough good about this program. i use it everywhere (mac, web, macbook, iphone). it's certainly not perfect (auto indent?, the ability to copy check boxes) but it is certainly good. I use a moleskine too, but for searching and loading up data, and keeping task lists, with pictures! Evernote has made me very happy.

this question was asked awhile back on HN and that is how I found out about. I've tried various things in the past, but evernote has worked great for me. evernote.com.

I second or third that. Great on the mobile phone for uploading quick notes and pictures.

Evernote is to my memos what dropbox is to my work in progress files.

Moleskine - in my pocket with a pen at all times. I jot things down all the time that spark my interest and leave a page or two blank with them. When I have time, usually that night, I will compile more thoughts on the ideas. If they stand up beyond that, I will copy them into a Tomboy notebook (http://www.gnome.org/projects/tomboy/).

Currently I have a "notes" directory with a bunch of flat text files in it. If I'm looking for a particular thing I use grep to find it. vim is my editor of choice.

I'm not a huge fan of the system because it's not available online, it doesn't support tagging, and it doesn't work well for branching, annotations, or hyperlinking. I have yet to see any particular wiki, blog, or mind-map software which really does what I'm looking for.

This might be a good candidate for me to write up some software to more sufficiently meet my needs.

I also have a physical notebook which I write in chronologically. I tend to use a page or two a week, with things scribbled in the margins and diagrams all over the place. It's kind of neat in that you can read it in order and see what I've been thinking about. Unfortunately this doesn't mesh well with my electronic system. I haven't yet found an interface that I like for doing graphical notes or scribbles yet on the pc... maybe there will be a tablet PC which has support for what I dream of.

What do you mean by branching?

If it's all plain text, tags and annotations are just conventions. I use tag: and [].

I'm currently trying different systems, and to be honest, I'm not 100% happy with any of them.

Started with the lovely and simple Notepad textfiles, but after a bit they are too simple and too hard to maintain, thus not good.

Then I used Google Notebook for a long time, was easy to add stuff, but not so easy to find it later. Plus it's still too simple for my liking, can't categorize ideas too well.

I switched recently to Evernote, which seems to be an improvement over Google Notebook, but for some reason I still don't feel comfortable with it. The fact that I can type offline and sync with different computers or read my ideas online is really welcome and handy, though.

Everytime I fall back to my paper notebook, which is also too simple and not search friendly, but I like handwriting and for some strange reason, ideas flow much better than when I write rather than type them. The real only grudge I have with it is that there is no backspace key and no "insert a new line in the middle of the text" either :(

I use Google Docs/Google sites. This allows me to add notes from anywhere with internet access.

Sometimes it's just faster to write on paper, if I don't have my notes doc open in a browser tab. I build up notes all day in one of my pockets. At the end of the day, I take all my notes and copy them into Google docs.

Additionally I use http://dabbleboard.com/ for sketches, and then save a link to my sketch in my Google Doc.

The concern some have with with Google docs, is the paranoid one, that maybe Google is stealing all your good ideas. I'm just going to assume that they are too busy for that shit(or hopefully too ethical). But otherwise google docs is becoming the defacto file sharing app, so why not just sell out now while it's hot.

It all goes in my Moleskine. You'd be surprised how well just the act of physically writing something down w/ pen and paper will help you remember it. I look back at my notes once in a while but for the most part they're all retained in the brain.

I have 744 "Drafts" to myself in GMail.

Ditto. But I manage (somehow) to loosely categorize them: there is an (ever expanding) message with Music, Movies, Books and other media that I want to look at.

Any little program or something that I write gets `tar czvf`ed into its own new message. Sometimes there will be comments in the body of the message and sometimes not.

For things that haven't made a Gmail message yet, there is a `notes.txt` file that is kept under RCS (via Emacs vc-mode).

I thought I'm the only one doing that :)

I was in the same boat, taking at least 10 notes in a session, several times a day. I work best by blasting notes in and sorting through them when I come up for air. There wasn't anything that allowed me to work this way very effectively, so I did what any of you would have done - started a startup, of course!

We are live, you can check us out at the link below:

http://www.ubernote.com

I use org-mode with Emacs for it's flexibility and because Emacs is always running anyways.

I had this exact problem for passwords and random to-dos about six months ago. I ended up writing an app for it:

http://yellownote.info

It's like OS X sticky notes (mentioned elsewhere in this thread, which I also love) for the web. There's an iPhone interface for it too.

(sorry to self-promote, but it's relevant to the discussion)

Onenote is the best I've found, by far. And I'm still looking for a replacement for linux. In my case, it's zim, a personal wiki.

Onenote is great indeed. Possibly underrated because it is a MS product, but it is great for note taking and syncing those notes to pda or mobile phone.

Haven't seen anyone mention Zenbe Lists yet (http://lists.zenbe.com).

It's a free web app which does one thing well: it allows you to maintain and reorder any number of lists.

The reason I use it is because their iPhone app is the best ToDo app I have used on the platform (and I have tried the majority of free ones).

The iPhone app syncs with the web app, which I can access from anywhere.

On my Mac, I use Fluid to create a site specific browser that lives in the menubar to allow me quick access to my Zenbe List at any time.

So in this way, I always have access to any streams of thought that I decide to jot down day-to-day.

Edit: I wanted to like Evernote and used it for several days, but found it was much too slow. As well, the Mac client is not suited for quick creation of notes.

Question about moleskines:

I went to the bookstore last night and decided to pick up a couple of notebooks since they were on clearance. I noticed there was a Moleskine section, and since other folks seem to talk about them all the time (many in this thread), I decided to see what the big deal was. I flipped through a couple of them, and they didn't seem to be any better than any other notebook. They were also much more expensive. Are they just popular due to their marketing? They market themselves as being the same notebooks used by Hemingway etc., but that's not true. And even if the notebooks were used by smart people, so what? You aren't going to write like Hemingway or paint like Picasso because you use the same paper. So what's the deal? Is there something better about them that make them cost so much?

I've found the quality of the paper to be substantially better in a Moleskine in comparison to your standard drug-store notebook.

However, the hardbound Moleskines are a bit pricey, so I use the tan Cahier notebooks. They are less expensive and they have the added benefit of being able to write on the cover.

I add cataloging information to the front of every notebook; date ranges, project names, any other major items that may be relevant a year down the road.

I email myself the moment I think of something, then process my email inbox once a day. When processing, I either do the thing (if it will take less than two minutes), or file it with a project or under someday/maybe. For filing, I just have a bunch of folders and files on my hard drive. Nothing fancy.

I do a more GTD style than the previous suggestions, focusing on reducing mental clutter. Every week I carry around a todo list with the top priority projects. When I think of something, I jot it down on the back of the todo list. I'll review it as "input" along with all the other input from the day. Good ideas make it to my igoogle sticky note, which has become a pretty long list of potential projects. If any idea seems like a worthwhile project, then I analyze it side by side on a spreadsheet against other projects to look at a rough ROI and how it matches with my short term goals, interests, skills, and other projects.

This way, I don't lose any input, can focus on the task(s) at hand, and have some degree of certainty that I'm working on better projects.

I use a Moleskine for keeping track of day-to-day records (calories, my adherence to habits I'm trying to adopt, etc), but for everything else, I use my own app ShoveBox (http://www.wonderwarp.com/shovebox/).

I agree with some of the other comments posted. Paper and pen - I carry a moleskin/stack of index cards on me all the time. Anytime I get a thought that I need to record, I use one of the those (the index cards are for throw away stuff, like things to do, shopping lists etc). Ideas, go in the moleskine (this can include pretty much anything like a good startup idea, a web app, a topic for blogging etc).

Once every few days/weeks, I go through the moleskine and review. If there's anything worth recording, I put that in a mind-map.

Agreed its not a comprehensive system, but like LogicHoleFlaw says, I am still waiting for that one combination of software/hardware that I can use. Someday. Sigh.

I use Google's online spreadsheet program to maintain lists of people and specific work-related tasks, and daily scratchpads for reused HTML.

I sometimes email notes to myself, from my work to my personal account, so I can review later. I also use Palm Desktop to maintain lists of things to do or buy. One problem with the email approach is Yahoo Mail's search function is terrible -- emails that are older than a few months are not indexed. But I've had the account for 10 years, and don't like the gmail interface enough to switch.

I write some notes on paper, especially when I am using the phone, and will re-enter the data into Palm or a text editor if necessary.

Haphazard, but it works.

Switching to gmail: 1. set autoforward on yahoo 2. import yahoo mail from gmail 3. set reply-to header on yahoo

3x5 Cards - smaller and more versatile than a moleskine, you can give away the card without ripping a page out. When I had a moleskine, it was like ripping out a little piece of my heart each time. Easy to sort and throw out the ones that are garbage.

I like the ones with a graph pattern printed on one side or blank on both sides. Can take great notes in meetings. Can vary the number of cards that you bring with you. Several times I've been with people and we've mapped out entire projects with them on a bar tabletop. I'll never go back to a moleskine or a handheld app.

I have been working with 2 others on a product that will be released to a larger beta within a month called Wizehive. It lets you organize and share among others notes, tasks, upload and share files, integrates with email, has an iphone app, a twitter-like feed that pulls it all together, etc. If you'd like an invite to the private beta we'd love to get more feedback. Email me at wizehive@gmail.com

I tend to follow the GTD approach, and rely heavily on todo.sh (http://todotxt.com/library/todo.sh/). I keep my todo.txt file in an rsynced directory so I just push/pull to/from whatever computer I'll be working at that day.

If I'm away from a computer, good old pen and paper fills in the gaps.

I use Things, an iphone app which syncs wirelessly to a mac desktop app. it's primarily a todo list type application, but I've found that I can keep track of ideas that I have as well. the UI is great, and I always have it in my pocket. if I want to do any serious note taking, I can use the desktop app and then sync the notes over to the iphone.

I usually have several academic papers and a few forms stacked in a pile on my desk. I write on the backs of those for quick notes and scratch paper.

Anything written on those that's actually worthwhile eventually makes its way into something permanent - either in code or in an actual paper - so I don't care what happens to the note itself.

$ echo " this is a text it will be appended to file 'note' don't forget double '>' otherwise you override " >> note

I just started using Stickies, the default Mac sticky note application. It turns out that just having it written down somewhere is enough to prompt me to do something about it.

I would use a physical notebook - moleskines have the best reputation - but since I'm in college going for a computer major, I'm very rarely far from my laptop.

One of my pet projects has been to create a minimalist task manager that uses Ajax. It allows you to add/edit/delete tasks quickly without needing to reload the entire page. For those of you who are interested, you can check it out at the URL below:

http://www.maketask.com

As others do too, I carry around a Moleskine (although I also like a fountain pen); once I have enough for a particular project, they'll often go into a Devonthink database (see http://www.devon-technologies.com/ ) for organization to the extent I need to.

If I'm at a computer, I add ideas and TODO's to a ticketing system (RT) and if I'm in the car and brainstorming, I use the iPhone app voicenote to make a quick voice recording of my idea before I forget it, then I dump them into the ticketing system when I get in front of a computer.

http://notebook.google.com

It has great copy and paste functionality for capturing snippets of information from web sites. The loose organizational structure of the notebooks is great for jotting down quick ideas.

I always carry a moleskine notebook with me and write stuff in there when it occurs to me.

I have a small notepad that I try to keep as close to me as possible. When I'm out, it's in my back pocket. When I'm at my desk, it's right there. Ready to rock. It's mainly about keeping track of to-dos and remembering ideas for blog posts.

I just started using Google notes and its actually a lot better then I expected. Before that I would jot notes on my iphone notes app and convert them to flat text files or excel sheets when I was in front of a computer.

I too use a moleskine for quick notes. And code browser for storing: http://www.chrylers.com/agile-knowledge-management

Yeah, I've been looking for something like this too where you can keep a list of notes handy, online. I haven't found the perfect app yet. I usually just write them down in notepad and save 'em.

I'm usually in front of a computer, so I have an emacs buffer or notepad open that I can quickly alt tab to and jot something down.

Then, I can search it all if needed.

Two Moleskine. One for serious stuff. One for current stuff.

iPhone notes, reviewed frequently.

Text files which I convert into Moleskine notes.

That's all.

Luminotes.com or Google Notebook.

On the go? Moleskine

If find VoodooPad (http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/) - a personal wiki - indispensable.

I use a combination of Stickies on OSX and sending emails to myself in GMail.

Backpack, from 37Signals. www.backpackit.com

I use the "Notes" (default app) on my iPhone. It's great; the only thing that's lame is that it doesn't auto-sync with iTunes and my Mac.

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