I started a “dirt notebook”
pinewind.bearblog.dev
pinewind.bearblog.dev
My practice is to capture the raw stuff on the right hand page and then keep the left hand page for later clarification or distillation. Thus a quick flick through a notebook shows which pages got developed further than the daily flux.
the second problem, because its my original thought, I'm naturally attached and biased to my precious thought in that moment. The same thought could feel dumb or obvious or wrong next week. But right then it feels like I've stumbled upon something so insightful. So I need to write it down to revisit.
I've now distributed manila folders with 5-10 blank college ruled sheets of paper across different rooms in my home. I'm never too far from a blank piece of paper.
in the moment, I write it down on a sheet. Fold it and put it in my pocket. Its with me the entire day to review, add on or scratch off. It ends either in the bin or the binder at my desk. As the binder gets thick, i trash or consolidate to keep it thin. The really insightful ideas as far too few for a $2 binder.
Works way better than any other form of capturing insights. As i look through, my binder has so many backs of mailer's i've received and scribbled on. cant figure why.
on that note, the small whiteboard right next to my desk (at home) was a great idea too
Is your mailbox a short walk from where you normally work? Walks have been credited for the assist in idea generation from Aristotle to Nietzsche (and beyond).
I personally just keep a little pocket notebook and a couple pens on my person at all times. That replaces the need for the distributed folders of your system. Every week I go through and add them to either my paper notebook or my digital notes.
I don’t really trash the “bad” ideas either since my notebook is bound. I try to be neither precious with the good ideas nor embarrassed of the bad. I treat them all as just a record of thoughts.
I've struggled a lot with this. For me I think it comes down to not being intentional enough about why I'm doing the goal in the first place so I get distracted by shiny new systems that in theory will solve all my problems. With this in mind, I try to keep things as simple as possible and strip back as many layers between the goal and the thing that helps me keep on track to complete that goal.
In relation to notes specifically ( this is for tracking life stuff - DIY/projects/day trips/thoughts etc...), I use a reminders/todo app and one A7 notebook with a mini-pen that live in my pocket. The notebook/pen is the cheapest that i can buy with a spiral.
During the week, I work through the todo list in the notebook, and write my thoughts/things to research more fully. At the end of the week, I remove the completed todos from the app, add new ones from the notebook. I tear up the pages from that week, then write up new todos to the notebook for next week.
now i just use excalidraw as my todo / thought board
The current best design always lives in my head, and by the time it exists, the solution and understanding is so clear and detailed that I can't be arsed to write it down.
I do think there is value in taking notes for others, though.
What works a little bit for me is having a lose stack of papers at work. The topmost paper serves to put a coffee mug on top, that will take the coffee stains so the table stays clean. From time to time I actually scribble something on a sheet, and since the sheets are all loose it's very easy to discard any sheet after it's served its (diminishingly small) purpose as a thinking aid.
1. A "rough" notebook to jot down notes 2. A "classwork" notebook to present those notes properly to the teacher and get them corrected and 3. A "homework" notebook to finish homework assignments that used to be given
It's quite a discipline to jot things down in the rough work book and then write out a "neat" version in the class work book.
I stopped doing it once I finished school and realized I didn't really need to do it anymore once I understood what I was writing out. But maybe it’s a habit worth returning to.
And here is a review from Fatih Arslan at https://arslan.io/2025/02/24/plotter-notebook-system/
For a notebook. With what might be proprietary refills.
What.
There are a hundred different issues that are more important to me than the usability of my notebook in a court proceeding. And even so, that proceeding might easily be one against you, so why would you want to produce reliable evidence against yourself?
Thanks!
There's a vision I am still somewhat attracted to of illuminating notes into a handcrafted moleskin (or whatever) journal and in doing so, creating an artifact that has value across all dimensions. This intention, whether it sits on the surface of my subconscious or just below it, detracts from the thing of value: what's being written.
What really changed my perspective was attempting to write seriously. The first draft of a long form work is the bare minimum to begin writing. Writing does not really begin until it exists. When I tried to adopt this into the notes I made in my professional life what I found is that, in general, I didn't really need much of the notes anyway.
Midori notebooks have set a higher bar for me. At 10 euros every few months, it is well worth the upgrade. Likewise for pens. They are like 2 euros each.
Or write in one of the Semitic or Western Asian languages, which are right-to-left. You’ll never smudge and you’ll be able to enjoy fountain pens.
1. Small A6 pocket notebook which I always have on me because it fits in any pocket. Write down anything and everything in it. Bundled with a pen, leather cover,and tiny e-ink ebook reader
2. Big A4 notebook which I usually use at my desk. I used to have an A5 but since it’s not portable anyway, I might as well go with an A4
I really like this setup. There’s also a digital side to it, which consists of Obsidian for creating notes, Quartz for converting obsidian-generated .md files into static websites, and a simple self-hosted web server which gets new files via git.
I had a friend who would write notes on everything. Every time he learned something, he would write it down in his own words. This sounds good, but he ended up basically internalizing and studying his own misunderstandings, as he never referred back to the source material and instead studied off of his notes.
So I'm very curious how you take notes, if you're willing to share?
Personally I have found recently that Excalidraw is really good in terms of drawing with one of the mouse that I have (Logitech Razer) though I also found that drawing with mouse or staring into screen while writing is a bit more dizzy experience than I expected and I still thrive on pen/paper when thinking about coding problems and within that a standard A4 size notebook really does wonder but the problem to me is also what many people here face and I didn't know that everyone felt so much of this exact same problem!
I will try to keep the pocket diary in my pocket now, and probably a pencil (maybe mechanical) with it :)
but do you keep the content from diary and merge it with your digital notes and if so how do you proceed doing that?
For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note.
In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on the uploaded image and corrects any mistakes and adds some markdown formatting. I have a pretty ugly handwriting but it still does a great job and gets it like 95% right.
All this results in a lightweight (~200kb) image in chosen note in my Obsidian vault with a transcribed and edited text below it.
Generally I’m a big fan of Obsidian because it’s very intuitive and customisable. Like I also have an Excalidraw plugin there for example :)
But most things start in one of my notebooks before they get ingested into obsidian just because I like to handwrite and stay away from my phone as much as possible
As far as pencils go, I got annoyed by the “normal” pencils because their tips kept getting broken or flat and I would need to carry yet additional thing with me, a sharpener. So I looked into mechanical pencils and settled on a 0,5mm tip with HB or H leads. I ended up getting a couple of mechanical pencils to test out and then gave away most of them as gifts to friends. I really liked the Pentel Graphgear 500 for its metal grip which make it well balanced; the uni-ball kuru toga for its rotating tip that keeps the lead sharp at all times; and the Parker jotter for its full stainless steel body. They are each like 10-15€ on Amazon and I think they are all great quality and just fun tools to use
And if you like the Pentel GraphGear 500, you might want to check out the Pentel Sharp Kerry -- it's metal but with a post-able cap which makes it very pocketable.
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/1be6bb1d4b3c458eb4600314805...
Some notes on using it: - Don’t input any degrees if you don’t want the image rotated (I wanted an option to also take vertical photos)
- I usually save the image directly in my obsidian vault (folder)
- In the final “share” step you have to choose the obsidian app and then import it into your vault and into the daily note or somewhere else. Or some other app of your choice.
on a mobile the next best thing was replacing my obsidian's app icon (no endorsement - I don't like obsidian) with the widget that pulls up today's "daily note", whether I want it or not. on pc I have an autohotkey command that does the same for notepad.exe
Eventually I got over it now and just use them as places to scribble ideas and don't care if it's ugly. I find that over the years I just started caring more about getting the thing I wanted to accomplish done than making sure I had a pristine record of the thoughts that led up to it. Maybe it's an age thing.
This is the lazy, pointless-TV-watching of writing. And I’d recommend it, but if I tried to explain why that would defeat the purpose of having no purpose.
We were hobbyists making features and shorts on a shoestring budget with no expectations of “making it.” It was a blast. It’s also an all-consuming hobby that you can’t keep up forever.
The last short film we did before is still online https://vimeo.com/144277181
I’ll check that one out.
Not too long ago I accidentally bought a huge package of wide ruled spiral notebooks. I hate wide ruled and prefer college ruled. So they sat collecting dust for a long time before I finally looked at the pile and figured I'm just gonna start using these and treating them exactly like you do - a drainage ditch. So far so good, the pile is half gone. Definitely helps to go with the no fucks given approach.
It's not a new concept. Bullet journal, logseq, zettelkasten, org-mode, etc are all inspiration
There is no system. I use the paper to write things down. Some pages are ugly and others are nice. The cover is full of stickers. There are drafts, coffee stains, doodles, watercolours, to do lists.
The important thing is that I always have this notebook nearby and that I am not afraid to use it. Having two notebooks seems pointless to me, like saving the good china for rare occasions and eating out of paper plates.
I get around this by making a deliberate attempt to organize my notes after I take them. I will usually try to turn them into a word doc with a lot of word art, but if they need to be in a repo or something, I will go with markdown.
The only note taking app I’ve found to be fun to browse is Google Keep. I love the layout, I love how things are “out of place”
On a side note, I’ve found Muji notebooks to hit that sweet spot where the paper is nice enough to write down something you want to keep and refer back to, and cheap enough that you can waste pages writing down spur of the moment thoughts and things.
It’s also handy to be able to reorder pages if you’re bouncing between purposes, and gives you the option to have a mix of papers if sometimes you want lined and other times dot grid or blank.
I like these https://www.jetpens.com/Lihit-Lab-Pastello-Twist-Ring-Notebo...
I keep mine loose in a box
I already know I'm going to annoy some people by saying this, but I've gone through both messy and neat phases of life. Every messy phase was almost entirely forgettable and inexperienced noise. Eventually, I'd find stability in my life and become neat again.
I'm not saying messiness is inherently shameful, but it is absolutely worth looking at the bigger picture to find answers. I probably prolonged the messy phases by avoiding self-analysis. I now realize that it was insecurity and avoidance behavior.
Of course, neatness can also be a coping strategy. I'm intrigued by the author's premise.
> I'm somewhat enamored with the concept of shitty / messy notebooks, like this or this.
It sounds like they want to explore messiness as an aesthetic, not genuinely experience it. I've already said enough to imply what I think about that. I think deliberately chasing aesthetics might be more detached from reality than what I had going on.
People find aesthetic value in keeping a neat notebook. It's been a social media trend for many years now. It has to be the majority of jetpens.com customers.
Why wouldn't a messy notebook be similar?
The point of TFA seems to me: "do what works for you". If keeping your netbook tidy is at the expense of using it, than maybe that means that doesn't work for you. If keeping your netbook tidy pushes you to write more (or doesn't hinder your ability to write on it) then go for it!
The tidy todo notebook or lab notebook is to offload working memory or keep records.
The chaos notebook is for disorder.
The other two are for daily planning and the more structured long term things. Seems to work for me but if I hasn't found something that works, I'd totally be down for a dirt notebook.
Been doing this for a year.
My writing style is ‘harnessed’ by a simplified Bullet Journal method,[2] complete with diagrams, writing on the sides, sometimes vertical, and everything else in between. However, the interesting thing is, my notes are still one of those that gets shared by other people in the same meeting. I tend to draw out everyone’s speech and ideas into visuals that make me understand better.
I also start writing from the last page of the notebook too, to maintain a running list of TODO/TASK items.
When a page is parsed or transferred or no longer valid, I mark that page as ‘archived.’ This is usually done weekly or whenever I feel like it with the same simple fountain pen or a colored marker if I find it nearby. This way, I know which page I never need to look back at and which ones need to be re-checked later.
Individual pages sometimes contain TODO/TASK too. This is where the Bullet Journal method comes in to finish it off.
For contents that are useful for future references, such as resources of knowledge or ideas or a journal entry, I transfer them to my digital notes, the physical journal, and the commonplace book. [3]
These might seem complex, but after a while, they have become muscle memory for me. If you want to start off today, constrain yourself with something "un-dirty" like the Cornell Note Taking System[4] to build up a habit.
I’m including links to some of my personal blog’s articles (not very popular around here), but it makes sense with the above notes I just wrote.
Edit/Addendum: I think it is only fair to confess that I am inspired by the note-taking style of Leonardo da Vinci depicted and dramatized in movies, and TVs. I’m just a low-level copier and thief of the methods of such a great person.
1. https://brajeshwar.com/2025/notes/
3. https://brajeshwar.com/2024/commonplace-book/
4. https://lsc.cornell.edu/how-to-study/taking-notes/cornell-no...
funny how someone else had the same exact problem and we came up with similar solutions independently.
Is this a so-called humble brag? FYI my notebooks are messy, unorganized and dirty (from lying unprotected in my backpack). I rarely use it because I always lose the pen after each scribble.
Meanwhile I'm most productive with disgusting tear-off scrap pads, made of recycled paper (or like, composted bananas or something).