Comment by spacemanaki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spacemanaki | Hacker News Reader

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"I’ve found that having a pen and paper that you enjoy actually makes you use them both a lot more."

This is exactly why I experiment with pen and paper combinations every now and then trying to find something I like. I find the act of note-taking very beneficial, both for work and for self-study of math, CS, programming, etc. Just writing my thoughts down solidifies things a bit better, so encouraging that by making the writing enjoyable is what I've strived for.

I don't even spend that much, just allowed myself to pitch what didn't work and find something I like. My current favorite combination is National Brand Computation notebooks ($12) which I like for being quite large at nearly 12"x10" and having thick smooth paper and the largest (08) Pigma micron pens ($2) which are almost like felt tip markers. It almost feels like writing on a whiteboard.

Of course, what I like specifically isn't that important, but I definitely recommend experimenting with pen and paper if note taking is something you want to encourage yourself to do.

This is exactly why I experiment with pen and paper combinations every now and then trying to find something I like.

I tried many combinations of pen and paper in my early 20s, but I never found one I preferred to a keyboard. And not the fancy keyboards either, as my favorite keyboard is a laptop keyboard. The most important feature is that I don't have to think about my input device, my writing surface, or how to draw letters -- only on the message I'm writing.

I agree that you can't beat the keyboard for some things. But there are a lot of things I find easier to do with pen and paper than type: almost any and all math and any kind of drawing at all. Doing that with LaTeX or the mouse or something like GraphViz instead of pen and paper would require a lot of thinking about the tool, at least for me.

Oh, that's where tablet input is perfect. Just pick up the stylus and turn on drawing tools. Or mspaint.

A trick that Neil Gaiman mentioned, and I quite like, is to alternate your ink colour each day. That way you can quickly see how much progress you've made.

I like to keep some history. It's useful, and fun to go back to.

I've been using acid-free Strathmore sketch books (various sizes) for about 25 years. Usually with a fountain pen, but that's just an affectation.

Small, hand-sized notebooks for small ideas. Paperback-book sized notebooks for meeting notes. 8 1/2 x 11 inch notebooks for general engineering.

The friend that I stole this little system from said that he had a coffee-table-sized book at home that he'd never used, because he'd never had an idea that big. :-)

When I join a project and I'm in "sponge" mode, I usually copy down APIs and make class diagrams. There's something about muscle memory and the act of hand-copying that makes it easier to remember details of the system I'm learning.

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