26 ms·

Paper is the real 'killer app'

• philippoi 10y ago
  Not really technology-free; retrogressive rather.
  • icebraining 10y ago
    Yeah, it's always interesting how we stop considering certain things as "technology" once enough time passes. Yet anyone reading I, Pencil would be hard pressed to consider it an unprocessed product of the Earth.
    • ihaveahadron 10y ago
      You have to read a book to not think a pencil is like a fruit from a tree or something. If I didn't know better I'd be sure your fucking with me on purpose. The stupid has no fucking limits.
    • cableshaft 10y ago
      Thanks for mentioning I, Pencil. I hadn't encountered that before and found it very interesting. Link for anyone else interested: http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html
• lawless123 10y ago
  I always find it far easier when working on personal software projects to sketch out ideas on a notepad. From drawings to pseudocode it all seems far easier.
  • FroshKiller 10y ago
    When I get assigned a new feature to implement, I take the spec and write out my plan for implementation in longhand on paper. It makes me spend more time considering every aspect.
• jankotek 10y ago
  From article it seems that real productivity killer are the social media.
  • davnn 10y ago
    The real productivity killer is multi-tasking and in my opinion the problem with using digital media is that it's too effortless to start multi-tasking. There are already apps that restrict yourself to certain programs or websites - that might be a solution for people having trouble with multi-tasking. I can't imagine writing on paper that's for sure.
• gulperxcx 10y ago
  So we're reverting back to killing trees.
  • kagamine 10y ago
    What price a PC compared to a farmed forest?
    • icebraining 10y ago
      Are you saying they also update their social media presence using paper?
      • kagamine 10y ago
        It's known as a letter to the editor!
    • dmoo 10y ago
      As I always say, trees for paper are a crop with a long growth cycle. If you don't need the paper who will plant the trees?
      • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
        What proportion of planting is for paper, I'd expect wood used in construction to be a greater demand?
        • erikbye 10y ago
          According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), globally around 40 percent of the annual industrial wood harvest is processed for paper and paperboard. The pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest industrial user of energy, consuming 6.4 EJ in 2005, and a significant emitter of greenhouse gas (source EIA report 2008). Paper consumption has risen by 400% in the past 40 years. 35% of trees harvested are due to paper manufacture. 6.5+ million trees were cut down to make 16 billion paper cups used by US consumers, only for coffee, in 2006. Paper waste accounts for up to 40% of total waste in the United States. 71.6 tons per year. Sources: Wikipedia, WWF, FAO
• deleted 10y ago
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• yrio 10y ago
  For writing text, I prefer to type on a computer because I can easily rearrange / edit things. You can't do that on paper. I prefer paper for drawing though (diagrams / flowchart / etc). Has anyone tried using drawing tablet like Wacom? How does it feel compared to drawing on paper?
  • nnq 10y ago
    > because I can easily rearrange / edit things That's the problem for me. I can end up obsesively re-re-...-re-editing a note or checklist, waisting tons of time. To make it worse I can end up with lost time AND lost information simultaneously if not using something with a version control system too... So, for condensed small-scale 1-user planning, for me, when aiming for maximum productivity, paper is the killer app!
  • ghaff 10y ago
    Traditional Wacom tablets are IMO awful. Some people do get used to them but not having direct feedback of what you've written just doesn't work naturally. A tablet, especially one like the iPad Pro with the Pencil is much better but still doesn't work as well as just sketching on a piece of paper for me. I assume if I applied myself to using a tablet more though, I'd get used to it. Clearly people with a lot more drawing ability than myself can do great work on tablets.
    • jrapdx3 10y ago
      Yeah, Wacom tablets were/are great and terrible at the same time. I've used them on and off for a long time, and they really are great for drawing, but there's a learning curve to be sure. Actually I liked the older Wacoms better than some new ones I've tries out. The ancient "cursor" device was mouse-like, but used in absolute mode was great for some tasks where keeping it in the same place enabled keeping the pointer on the screen in a predictable spot. Actually the newer touch/stylus screens on tablets like the MS Surface models I've used are harder for me to use with the stylus. Manipulating the stylus is harder due to parallax and the fact that the tool and hand covers up part of the screen. Just doesn't seem as "natural" to me as the old drawing tablet.
• dvcrn 10y ago
  I recently adapted bulletjournaling (from OmniFocus) and absolutely love it. Writing my journal is very relaxing and became a daily ritual of mine. Once a week i escape with my notebook to a cafe (without any tech gadgets) and review my entire system, cut out some tasks that are no longer relevant and plan for the next week. Paper also allowed me to confront imperfections and mistakes more directly. I made a ton of writing mistakes that drove my crazy first and made me want to buy a new note first since I was so used to having my OmniFocus in perfect shape. It's really refreshing! Plus It's interesting to see what a engineering brain can do with pen and paper. Most of the "modules" I use in my bulletjournal like my monthly and weekly spreads were from scratch created to fit perfectly on my needs. Oh and boy does good paper feel nice!
  • Accacin 10y ago
    I also use the Bullet Journal "system" and it's really nice and I enjoy writing what I need to do for the day. However, unlike you I haven't really extended it and use only the basics which seems to work fine for me.
    • dvcrn 10y ago
      That's great! Simpler solutions are most of the times better. I needed to squish start dates and deadlines, task scheduling, 'waiting on' + 'someday' lists, project pages, weekly overviews and better migrations into mine which took a good amount of trial and error to find something that sticks and is intuitive. On the other hand, I am trying to literally plan everything in my journal. I don't want to rely on any other app and thus need to come up with modules that make it possible to get rid of app dependencies completely.
  • jschulenklopper 10y ago
    http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/ http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/
  • willtim 10y ago
    I like to think of paper as immutable storage. All my mistakes remind me how safe my jottings are versus the average note taking software effort. I do use org-mode and git at work, but even then will often capture to paper.
• amelius 10y ago
  It lacks a good undo/redo feature. Unless you scan your work, erase stuff on your computer, and then print it.
  • skrebbel 10y ago
    I warmly recommend a mechanical pencil with a relatively soft lead and a little eraser on the back. If you write softly with soft lead, erasing is very little effort.
    • FreezerburnV 10y ago
      The Frixion line of pens is also useful for this. They might be somewhat limited as to what you can get outside of Japan, but a site like Jet Pens should be able to fix any deficiencies. (Eg: didn't know that they made highlighters with Frixion ink until a recent trip to Japan, where they have these pens literally everywhere)
      • rhinoceraptor 10y ago
        I've heard horror stories of students using those on an exam, and the teacher leaving the exam in a hot car, which 'erases' the heat sensitive ink.
      • urs2102 10y ago
        These are the only pens I've bought through high school and university. It strikes the perfect balance between easy erasability and visible ink (luckily going to school in the northeast, I never had the overheating in the car issue).
      • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
        Dip a page in a 50% alcohol solution and set fire to it. Dry. Now you have a clean page again!
      • raleighm 10y ago
        These pens are amazing.
• deleted 10y ago
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• jventura 10y ago
  I've never had much success with digital todo lists, so I've never stoped using pen and paper to schedule what I have to do. On my current system I have a math notebook (A5 format) where I dump everything I have to do on the left (or right) non-writable areas of the page, and then everyday I write what I have to do for the next day on the writable area. I try to add for each day at least one of those items on the left/right side, and each day I try not to add more than 2/3 items per day. The reason that this works for me is that I try to have a very simple life, fulfill my daily obligations, and try to have as much free time as I can get. I do not need automatic systems to search my pending tasks way back in time because if those tasks don't "migrate" to the current page of the notebook, it's because they are not much relevant.
  • mlok 10y ago
    Your migrating tasks remind me of the Autofocus system : https://lifehacker.com/5151111/autofocus-is-a-single-paper-based-list-organization-system https://lifehacker.com/5151111/autofocus-is-a-single-paper-b...
• SeanDav 10y ago
  It can be much better to write down notes, rather than typing. The reason, is that writing is slow and therefore forces one to analyse and summarize at origin, rather than just blasting it out, almost verbatim by typing.
  • Tjwilson92 10y ago
    I (largely) agree with your point, that doing things by hand limits your capacity to record lots of things, and brings the mind-set of "I can only write down so much, how can I distil it?" There's decreasingly less time pressure on learners - in and out of formal education. Note-taking from written sources, or recordings (video or audio) means there's less rush to take notes right there and then. The processes of analysis and comprehension are slow, and so probably aren't best considered at one event, e.g. taking notes. The average person isn't writing something down once, then fully understanding it, no matter how slowly they write. Even improved retention requires revisiting material, and comprehension or synthesis require application and evaluation of the material.
• EddieSpeaks 10y ago
  Y'all need a Surface Pro
• ihaveahadron 10y ago
  Yea no shit you stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stidhgujur mother fucking ckig urcjingfuck you fuck you.
• pumblechook 10y ago
  I've found journaling on paper to be one of the best morning rituals for calming anxiety. It really is amazing how just writing a few sentences creates a sense of awareness of what's going on in your head. I also tried bullet journaling as my 'system', but quickly abandoned it. It is great if you're not a compulsive to-do list maker, but if you follow a GTD-like system where you frequently capture, it becomes onerous to answer the question 'what do I do next?' You either have to constantly flip through pages to review your full list, or regularly copy your to-dos to a master list, which becomes quite tedious, especially if you have a long list. What works for me is using org mode as my to-do system, with paper for the brainstorming and planning. I always start with paper, then once I have clarity on what to do, I move it to org.
  • weavie 10y ago
    Interesting. I wonder how useful journaling would be to help combat insomnia. I will give it a go next time I am lying in bed at 2am with my head buzzing..
    • mikehollinger 10y ago
      I use sleep cycle as an alarm clock. A few years of sleep data says that (for me) going to bed after working late leads to bad sleep, and going to bed after reading leads to better sleep. Based on this single data point, perhaps try picking up a book when you call it a night?
      • Freak_NL 10y ago
        Nothing beats curling up in a warm (well, now that it's winter in the Northern hemisphere anyway) bed with a book when you're calling it a day. It's relaxing. This habit also helps you actually get around to reading for leisure.
        • matwood 10y ago
          Even when I go to bed late, reading a few pages from my current book helps me slow down and get to sleep.
• eb0la 10y ago
  I really like paper systems like David Seah Printable Ceo: http://davidseah.com/node/the-resourcetime-tracker/ http://davidseah.com/node/the-resourcetime-tracker/ Really good for project status and 100% paper-based.
• otalp 10y ago
  I never liked all the multitude of list making apps - Evernote, Todoist, Omnifocus, etc. I prefer org-mode[1] on emacs. It's simple, flexible, distraction free and for some reason reminds me of writing on paper. You get the simplicity, while also making it as powerful as you want. 1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJTwQvgfgMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJTwQvgfgMM
  • chj 10y ago
    They all feel like work including orgmode, while writing and sketching on paper is playful.
  • TorKlingberg 10y ago
    Do you have a good solution for reading and editing on mobile?
    • julian55 10y ago
      I use Orgzly http://www.orgzly.com/ http://www.orgzly.com/
  • eddieroger 10y ago
    org-mode has been my 2017 resolution, and in the 23 days I've been using it, I'm sold. I love prose and writing, and this scratches that itch pretty effectively while also giving me really powerful things that I need to be organized, like structure to my notes and tag searches. It's also as in or out of the way as I want it to be, which is great - I get to define the structure of how it works, and have largely through my emacs config. My last remaining hangup is capture when not in front of a full computer, but I'm sure that's a problem just in need of some time and automation, and admittedly my life would be easier if I'd give in and store my orgfiles in Dropbox, but being less dependent on cloud services I don't control is my sub-resolution, so I'm resisting this one as long as I can.
    • peatmoss 10y ago
      I capture on paper. If I'm at a meeting or something, I simply write to paper, then transcribe my daily notes to org-mode at the end of the day. I don't particularly worry about structure when spooling to paper. Sometimes I'll capture to paper even if I'm sitting in front of my computer. If I've got something complex to reason through, I like the free-form nature of paper. I pretend it's an auxiliary scratch buffer whose contents I will reason about later. My paper notebook, therefore becomes pretty nonsensical, because it isn't the system of record. I carry it as a notebook because I can always go back a day or two if I got lazy and didn't transcribe the previous day. Also a paper notebook puts on a better show for society as compared to just having a few sheets of printer paper along for the ride at meetings (though that works too). Periodically, I rip previous pages out (if spiral bound--they tear cleanly) and shred them just to restore that fresh notebook feeling.
• miguelrochefort 10y ago
  This is ridiculous. Are people this short-sighted? I keep hearing about people going back to paper agenda or simple text files for todos. I would understand if they said they couldn't find a better solution, but many of them claim that this is an improvement over any digital solution. Again, nobody seems to be tackling this. Not even YC mentions this problem.
  • nickjj 10y ago
    I don't think there's anything to tackle really. I've been keeping notes in plain text files[1] for the last 15 years. It's a really good system and doesn't require 8 million in funding to make a startup around it. All you have to do is open notepad and get going. [1]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/plain-text-and-google-keep-is-a-killer-combo-for-notes-and-organization https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/plain-text-and-google-keep-is...
    • slfnflctd 10y ago
      Text files take up almost no resources, are quick to work with in every way, have superb portability, are automatically date/time stamped and can be siphoned into a database any time you want get crazier with organizing or tracking them. Paper is its own unique experience that is neat and stuff, but photos or scans of paper are ultimately kind of wasteful from a data perspective, as well as difficult to OCR-- and the way I see it, if you're not saving your stuff in data form at all, is whatever you're writing really a good use of your time?
  • theonemind 10y ago
    You seem to have implicitly made a jumbled mass of claims without supporting any of them. I can't quite tell what claims. It seems you contend that you need more complicated solutions for a better task tracking solution than paper or text files can offer. At some point, you reach the point of not getting any more marginal utility by making your planning system more complicated. The mental energy you put into the dealing with the machinery of your task tracking system could go into actually solving the problem. Bill Gates, shockingly, built Microsoft without a GTD planner. Trump became president of the united states without one. I don't find this premise at all convincing. Paper, as mentioned by the article, can stimulate different parts of the brain. No app can match that. You seem to react with shock to the notion without addressing the actual shortcomings in any constructive way.
• criddell 10y ago
  So, what's your favorite notebook and pen combination? I ordered a bunch of pens from Jet Pens a year ago and my favorite also ended up being one of the cheapest - the Pilot Hi-Tec-C. My favorite notebook used to be an engineering notebook. It had a grid on one side of the page and college-ruled lines on the other and had a spiral bound spine. Not sure if I have a favorite any more. I do use a lot of index cards.
  • rasur 10y ago
    For pens, I am enjoying the Pilot 'Frixion' pens. Biro, but can be erased. Now with different colours and even a highlighter. Only for note taking though, I'm not happy about erasable ink on official forms.
    • criddell 10y ago
      I did buy a Frixion pen but gave it away. I live in Texas and there are lots of times where my notebook will sit some place where the temperature is high enough to erase or at least fade the ink.
  • mrob 10y ago
    Favorite pen: Lamy Safari fountain pen with EF nib, and Noodler's Black ink. I've been using this for many years and it's always reliable. The grip is comfortable and the construction feels solid (it's survived being dropped a few times with no real damage). It's reasonably priced and meant as a practical tool, not a fashion statement like some fountain pens. And Noodler's Black ink is waterproof and will write on the cheapest paper without problems. I've tried many other fountain pens and inks but I always come back to this combination because it's so trouble-free. Favorite pencil: Rotring 500 0.5mm, with Pilot Neox 4B lead. I never much liked pencils before I found this lead. It's the softest I've found in 0.5mm, softer than most brands of 4B. It lets you write with very little pressure so it feels more like using a pen. The Rotring 500 has the same solid and reliable mechanism as the famous Rotring 600, but a plastic body so it's cheaper and lighter. But despite being a good pencil, I can't recommend it as strongly as the Lamy Safari because of one major flaw - it has no end cap. I reserve it for desktop use because the end pipe is completely unprotected and fragile. I have no strong preferences for paper and IMO a good writing implement should work with any common paper.
• deleted 10y ago
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• jpswade 10y ago
  "I was shocked to realize how dependent I’ve grown on three simple features that just aren’t available in the analog world: search, sort and filter" https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/ui-patterns-for-mobile-apps-search-sort-filter/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/ui-patterns-for-mob...
  • falcolas 10y ago
    They are - you simply have to do the extra bit of indexing work yourself. Create a high level topic for each note, and put that in the front of the notebook, with a page number. Once you're beyond one book, keep a separate index book and update it periodically with a book/page number from the indexes in the individual books. If you find yourself referring to a particular topic frequently, take some time and re-write the entry. That way you can correlate several writings on the topic, and add both a better framing and lessons learned. It's a bit of extra work, but it's worth it.
    • bluGill 10y ago
      I would argue that anything you refer back to even once should be translated into digital. Note I said translated, not transcribed. When converting to digital you should fix things: check the facts, make the diagrams pretty, fix the grammar. Paper is great for a rough draft. Rewriting your rough draft to the final is always good practice.
      • jdc0589 10y ago
        agreed. the main thing i use pencil & paper for is sketching out designs for some physical stuff I make. I always start on paper, but if it's a design I'm actually going to use more than once, it gets drawn up on the computer.
• djhworld 10y ago
  I carry a small "Field Notes" pocket notebook in my back pocket, it's useful for jotting small notes down and reminders. Each day I review what I've written and and input anything important into digital applications
  • jordz 10y ago
    Ditto! I have a leather pouch full of them :)
  • davegauer 10y ago
    Wow, my system is just like yours. The key is the daily review and transcription to a digital format (in my case, a big textfile with a rigid date format for everything, Google Calendar for appointments, Habitica for TODOs). Like bullet journaling, the review ensures that I actually see what I've written. The searchable digital copy can be hugely helpful later. It also adds the possibility of recording daily metrics to be parsed and made into charts. It's truly the best of both worlds: paper to record, digital to archive. (I'm about to hit 50 Field Notes in just under five years of doing this. I plan to do a write-up of my system now that I have a pretty good idea of what does and does not work for me.)
    • Touche 10y ago
      I'd be interested in reading about your system. What I like about Field Notes is that I can quickly write down thoughts and come back to them later --- if I want. It isn't rigorous which I think is key to productivity. The problem with todo apps is they become jobs that you need to complete. With paper notes there's no pressure to complete anything. Sure, I keep a todo list in my field notes, and every day I create a new list, some of which carries over from the previous day and some does not. I don't feel pressure to complete anything, and paper is what makes that possible (nothing is permanent, just a checkmark in time).
      • djhworld 10y ago
        > The problem with todo apps is they become jobs that you need to complete. Yep. I read this the other day https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-... and somewhat agree !
• eddd 10y ago
  Paper is not only bad for but also harmful. You actually have to cut a tree to make a notepad. I hope in 100 years people will look at the "paper age" as we do see the era when people carving information in stones. Why paper is worse: * you cannot easily edit/alter information that has been already created * it is hard to replicate and distribute * version control is non existent (except book keeping) * due to the replication problem and accessibility the information on it is not durable (at least not as durable as s3) * collaboration is hard and not possible over the long distance * security it terrible (even with all the stamps and hand signatures) I know that paper might sound tempting sometimes, but I blame the schooling system which enforces kids to use it. We are trained to use paper first that's why it might seems easier. To learn how not to use paper (I don't use it at all for over 3 years) is really hard, it requires to change the workflows, mindset and attitude towards the information. But at the end of the day, it is really worth it.
  • midgetjones 10y ago
    How bad is it in comparison to the resources used to make your computer/phone?
    • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      For most people that resource cost will be sunk. If you note take on paper the chances are you'll still have a computer. The reverse is possibly not true.
  • foldr 10y ago
    >due to the replication problem and accessibility the information on it is not durable (at least not as durable as s3) Paper records can last for hundreds of years without the support of any expensive infrastructure. I wouldn't bet on things that are stored on s3 being available hundreds of years from now.
    • eddd 10y ago
      I think it is called a positive selection bias. Some of paper lasted for hundreds of years. How much of information didn't survive during that time period? Information on s3 might not last for hundreds of years, but AFAIK the Voyager satellite didn't ship the information about our specie on paper.
• jordache 10y ago
  Ha ironically I thought they were talking about 53's Paper app
  • james_pm 10y ago
    I figured it was Dropbox Paper...which is a killer app, although nothing close to being "the" killer app.
  • deleted 10y ago
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• bambax 10y ago
  "Suits are back"??
• tambourine_man 10y ago
  I hate paper. No searching and highly losable. I'm also way faster on a keyboard than with a pen/pencil. In fact, I had to fax a hand written letter (yeah, don't ask) the other day and realized I'm now almost illiterate with this thing. I could draw very well as a kid, but my handwriting was always pitiful. But after years of neglect, the thing was illegible. I pity the poor person that would have to decifer the hieroglyphs. In sum, good riddance paper.
  • josefresco 10y ago
    "I'm also way faster on a keyboard" This is sort of the point of pen/paper - slows you down, makes you more contemplative. Plus, with a little practice I'm sure your handwriting would improve.
    • tambourine_man 10y ago
      I practiced through my whole childhood and teens in school, it probably only got worse over the years as I managed to write faster with less care.
  • falcolas 10y ago
    Adding an index takes care of the searching problem. Just a bit of extra effort that the computer normally takes care of for you.
    • efdee 10y ago
      I would say it takes care of the categorization problem. Searching, not so much, unless you spend an unholy amount of time maintaining your index.
  • mdrzn 10y ago
    Same, it feels too analogic.
  • commieneko 10y ago
    Partly it depends on the kind of writing/brainstorming I'm doing. I make lots of drawings in my notes, which is hard to do with a keyboard only app. Graphics tablets, even my Cintiq, which I use for actual drawing, don't have the responsiveness and clarity for note taking, diagram doodling, storyboarding, etc. Plus, and this the real killer, the start up cost in time of using a tablet and graphic stylus are enormous compared to having paper and pencils handy on my desk. A cheap memo pad in my brief case is also handy. I've tried using my phone, but keyboard input on a phone, while I'm sitting somewhere away from office requires a minimum dedicated effort. A lot of stuff gets lost when you have to overcome those startup costs. Even unlocking my phone with the thumb sensor contributes to me _not_ reaching for my phone when I've had a thought.
• SonicSoul 10y ago
  seems a lot of people in comments are missing the point. of course there is no search/filter/undo (actually undo exists). It doesn't win in every cateogry. What it does offer is force your brain to work more and therefore create a better mental map. It forces your brain to choose the actual things you can do instead of jotting down 1000 things you'll never look at again. For example, I've used evernote and a notebook to write down ideas each morning. after few weeks i was a lot more intimately familiar with ideas in my notebook because each page had unique character thanks to how my brain worked that day and the kinds of drawings that were added. It is also super easy to flip through pages to skim over other ideas, and thanks to unique shape of writing often i wouldn't need to read the text to know what that page is about. it's not a silver bullet and if you need to keep track of a ton of things of course it will get tedious, but I believe most people keep track of more things than they actually are capable of executing. And paper sort of forces you to simplify and focus on fewer things which IMO is a good thing
• mark_l_watson 10y ago
  Great article. One of the brightest tech colleagues I ever worked with used a moleskin notebook, always kept it with him. I bought a moleskin notebook for myself, but then my granddaughter started drawing in it, and I wanted to leave it as she left it. After reading this article I am going to buy another. I have always used yellow pads to brainstorm for new projects, but I later toss my notes and drawings. Using permanent notebooks seems like a better idea.
  • djhworld 10y ago
    Personally I'd recommend not buying a moleskine, the quality of the paper seems to have dramatically gone down the hill over the years to the point where you're getting ink bleeding through the paper. I'm a big fan of the Rhodia notebooks with Clairefontaine paper :)
    • mark_l_watson 10y ago
      Thanks, I will check out Rhodia notebooks.
    • groby_b 10y ago
      They're nice for journaling. If you need to organize things a bit more, I'd recommend Leuchtturm 1917. Very high quality paper, dotted, line numbers, comes with an index. It's really quite lovely. Both run circles around moleskine, which by now mostly coasts on the name.
  • keithpeter 10y ago
    Respectful alternative suggestion: buy a simple artist's sketchbook from your local art materials shop. In the UK, these would be less than half the cost of the Moleskin and have thicker paper (sharpie proof) and hard board covers with sown signatures. Granddaughter could selectively illuminate chosen pages :-)
• satai 10y ago
  My 2 eurocents Paper: + comfortable (for majority of people, not for everybody) + easy to add math or graphics to text + cool + supereasy to understand - hard to edit (frixion helps a bit) - no search - not readily available when compared with a smartphone - hard to backup or share
• closed 10y ago
  I've been setting aside an hour in the mornings for studying math, and using a paper notebook has been plain delightful. I just leave my computer somewhere, and scribble down problems on scrap paper. Once I've worked them out a bit, I put them in the notebook. There's no search/edit, but it's quick and lets me glance at what I've done over the previous month easily.
• reubenswartz 10y ago
  I've tried various approaches and realized that I'm trying to solve different problems in different situations. For example, in some meetings, everyone types at a keyboard, but in others, only paper note taking is socially acceptable. In these cases, capture happens on paper, but I need to transcribe to an electronic format if I want to use these notes later. (I take a lot of notes if I want to remember anything these days, and I tag them for easy lookup.) In some discussions, sharing a whiteboard or even a notebook is the best way to hash out ideas. (I'll just snap a picture with my phone if there's something I want to keep.) I've tried to get away from paper entirely, but the above scenarios make it hard. Plus, there is something nice about writing on paper. In a recent meeting, a prospect was talking about how he switched from paper to iPad Pro + Apple Pencil, and he loved it. (He also has much better hand writing than me.) Anyone else tried this?
  • noja 10y ago
    How about using a Livescribe? http://www.livescribe.com/ http://www.livescribe.com/
  • oddlyaromatic 10y ago
    Haven't tried that but I've used something called Rocketbook that is a notebook with features on each page that an app can recognize and easily capture and upload pages to specific destinations. So I can take notes by hand and still have a digital record with don't rudimentary tagging. Then you can reuse the notebook. Requires a specific pen and the right smartphone but to me this is totally worth it and I'm not stuck with no notes when I forget the notebook!
• mattferderer 10y ago
  I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Does anyone have a workflow for using paper to take notes & then transferring them to an online notebook (OneNote, Evernote, etc)? My current process is read a chapter, then take hand written notes trying to recall what I just read. A day or more later I revisit material by putting notes into a OneNote or Evernote. I've been weighing pros & cons of this vs doing freehand using something like a Windows Surface & OneNote. Hand written notes, revisiting & recalling information is strongly recommended by Professor Barbara Oakley who's a rather popular teacher of learning and memory topics.
  • cableshaft 10y ago
    I haven't tried it, but Molekine has an Evernote Sketch book that's designed specifically so you can take a picture of the page and upload it instantly into Evernote, you might find that useful. I also know they have a notebook you can buy that when you're done with it, you can mail it to them (for free, built into the price I think), and they'll digitize it for you, and either send back your paper copy or recycle it. http://www.moleskine.com/en/collections/model/product/evernote-sketchbook-with-smart-stickers-large http://www.moleskine.com/en/collections/model/product/everno...
    • mattferderer 10y ago
      Wow, that's pretty cheap. $11.53 + 15% off + 3 months of Evernote Premium right now. I haven't considered taking pictures of my notes, though I've heard of others doing. Thinking about it, it's probably worth having an image of my notes in my digital notebook as well as typed & cleaned up notes.
    • olejorgenb 10y ago
      They don't explain the feature very well. I can take picture of some cheap paper too? Do the pages have some kind of distinct marker telling evernote where the picture came from?
  • Ajedi32 10y ago
    Well, you could use something like a smart pen to automatically mirror everything you write on paper to Evernote. Here's one: https://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/ls3/ https://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/ls3/
• 0xCMP 10y ago
  In a world moving to mobile and the web I think the problem is there is no solution as powerful as org-mode. Almost every time I see a link like this I see (and think+agree) that org-mode is amazing and solves this. Great. Except you need to use Emacs. And it's NOT user friendly. Evernote is mucher easier. Todoist is much more integrated. etc. But those things are actually worse than org-mode. We need a sort of org-mode for the web.
• karmajunkie 10y ago
  I have started two new note taking practices recently: learning shorthand and sketchnotes. Sketchnotes I've seen fairly frequently around here, but not much mention of shorthand. My goal with both is that A) I hate taking notes on a computer; B) I'm trying to increase retention, which I'm finding the sketchnotes definitely helps with; C) I need a better way of keeping up in meetings, and writing longhand just isn't cutting it. I'm not far enough along with the shorthand, but I'm curious if anybody else around here uses it. Shorthand method: https://www.amazon.com/GREGG-Shorthand-Manual-Simplified/dp/0070245487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485184869&sr=8-1&keywords=gregg+shorthand https://www.amazon.com/GREGG-Shorthand-Manual-Simplified/dp/... Sketchnoting: https://www.amazon.com/Sketchnote-Handbook-illustrated-visual-taking/dp/0321857895/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485184910&sr=8-1&keywords=sketchnotes https://www.amazon.com/Sketchnote-Handbook-illustrated-visua...
• PetitPrince 10y ago
  I use an erasable notebook [1] for my scribbling. I find it quite good for sketching a quick diagram /prototyping, short-term todos, mindmapping and brainstorming. I don't think it's good for long term journaling (a proper notebook would be better). Having an erasable pen solves my problem of making tons of stupid spelling mistakes, being guilty of wasting paper and losing them in a giant pile of worthless annotation. For me it's more helpful to have some of my working ideas physically in front of me instead of hidden behind another window or virtual desktop. My particular brand of erasable notebook (Whynote) also have detachable sheets, so I'm not bound to the linearity of a conventional notebook (I not super fan of constantly having to turn pages). [1] http://www.whynote.ch http://www.whynote.ch or http://www.wipebook.com http://www.wipebook.com or http://www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk/category/magic-notebook http://www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk/category/magic-notebook
  • wakkaflokka 10y ago
    Fascinating, I might have to get one. Do these smear when you close the book? Does it have a similar feel and aesthetic to paper?
    • PetitPrince 10y ago
      Smear : you really have to put a lot of ink and immediately close the book to have some. In practice I have none. Look and feel : The texture and feel is quite different from paper. It's basically paper laminated with some sort of plastic. It depends on the pen you're using[1]. If you're using a medium pen, it feels a lot like a whiteboard (gliding feeling) . With a fine pen, it's a little bit more scratchy. [1] they are all using Staedtler Lumacolor correctable 305 pens. I wonder if there's an expired patent or if it's just a happy coincidence
      • Cyph0n 10y ago
        Do you need to use special pens? Or can you just use standard dry erase markers?
        • 10y ago
• Zigurd 10y ago
  The article if a mixed bag. I use a combination of paper and electronic note-taking. Being dogmatic about paper is as nearsighted as trumpeting some specific software solution. For example, the article states, correctly, that whiteboards dominate workplace collaborative text and drawing. It is also true that electronic whiteboards are a repeated failure over multiple product generations. But this ignores the ubiquity of smartphone cameras. Now people take pictures of whiteboards and share the images and transcribe the important text. Cameras have mostly superseded dedicated document scanning machines. Checks, receipts, signed NDAs, etc. are often managed using document imaging, but the document imaging product category has largely dissolved into our smartphones and apps. I'm not picky about software. I used to use any text editor to make lists, and have settled on Keep for electronic lists. Having reusable shopping lists makes Keep a winner over paper for that application. But I also keep a pocket pen and a small notebook in my pockets. There are times I can't keep up with note taking. There are also times when I need to extract a short list of tasks to be done in a morning, and doing that on paper is usually the easiest way to do it.
• losteverything 10y ago
  From my genealogical perspective use paper, please!!! Writing is a true anchor. Future generations will enjoy your handwritten, authentic writing. If ancestry .com is bad now for linking generations (where blind faith can often lead to incorrect trees) wait till all our electronic words is available 100 years from now. Writing will be greatly appreciated by your yet unborn great great grandchildren.
• KIFulgore 10y ago
  I recently re-subscribed to a real-life, old-fashioned newspaper. I like the digital edition, but prefer the paper version. The resolution is amazing and you can't beat the loading times, and I never run into browser incompatibility issues. There are still too many ads, but they don't pop up and dance.
  • vog 10y ago
    The only issue is that Ctrl+F doesn't work properly on paper, neither within a single newspaper, not across last year's newspapers.
    • adtac 10y ago
      I think I got a solution - every article is accompanied by a QR code that you can scan to open a searchable version of the exact same text. Just a couple of seconds away and you don't lose the papery-feel either.
      • 24gttghh 10y ago
        Why not ditch the QR code and have an app that takes a photo of text and lets you perform ctrl+f on the image?
        • dack 10y ago
          because you still couldn't search across pages
      • athenot 10y ago
        Skip the QR code and let the article itself be a code. Some magagines have implemented that already. It takes a specialized reader app but then the paper is not littered with QR codes all over. Of course the lo-tech version is simply google the title and chances are you'll find the digital version of the article.
      • bitwize 10y ago
        We could provide a device -- say, in a nice friendly shape like a cat -- that can read these codes and open up the relevant text on their PC or iPad or whatever! What could possibly go wrong?
• known 10y ago
  I believe "toothbrush" is the real killer app
• ThomPete 10y ago
  I call this the tangibility factor. When I worked at MetaDesign back in the late nineties and early zeros we had something called RedBooks. RedBooks were most of the work we had done for a specific client printed out in tabloid size bound into a spiral back book and put on a large shelf system. We also had a matriculate digital folder system with projects, searchable and the same pages as PDF plus much more accessible from your computer. Guess which one we used the most? With the RedBooks it was very easy to pull out the book and look through it for inspiration, talk about how we did this or that and so on and with the book we only put in the things that where somehow relevant. The computer folders on the other hand had everything because, yeah well why not. But what they had in quantity it lacked in human relatable tangibility. Computers are great when the amount of information become so waste that it's impossible to manually search through it all or if you need to share a lot of your things with other people. It turns out that for all the great things computers can help us do it still haven't solved tangibility.
  • agumonkey 10y ago
    I thought about that a lot, since I grew up in love about computers and believed they would be the solution for everything; even books. But as many said, "digital" mostly made us realize they were other things than the "pure" content. I believe our brain just crave as much sensations as possible, and writing, flipping pages, seeing a device move[1], touching, watching, etc ... basically the task of dealing with the physical world is not entirely a cost but a pleasure in itself. On the other hand(sic) computers send you a massive amount of symbolic informations (think text search in folders, it's "faster" than any physical archive), that tickle another part of your brain but not all of it, also, I think that our brain doesn't actually like too much of these because it evolved to abstract flows into new concepts. And these concepts are either a bit hard or simply not exposed to the users (think relational queries). There's a detrimental mismatch. [1] I booted a PIII desktop last year, to extract files from a TRAVAN backup tape. I cannot describe the pleasure I had watching that HP Colorado tape wake up and move. No matter how "slow" it was compared to anything today. It was so cool. Even the slick sound of tape moving ..
    • ThomPete 10y ago
• CodeSheikh 10y ago
  Might be a bit off-topic, but here it goes. This article gave me reassurance how I resisted using e-readers and stuck to the notion of using an actual book. Waste of paper? Yes. But then we are wasting papers in many other ways as well (another debate). Plus books hardly get recycled and they often get passed on (used bookstores). Also, my another issue with Kindle-esque books or even buying paperbacks from Amazon is that now I always rely on reviews before purchasing my new book. I remember when I was young and in school, I would just go and browse through books in my school library and pick whatever interests me.
  • BeetleB 10y ago
    As someone who grew up on paper books, but at one time bought an e-reader, my 2 cents: Ereaders will likely never be as good as the best paper books. However, they can be better than many printed books. I've owned printed books with poor bindings, poor typesettings, poor quality paper. The ereader was definitely better than those. On the whole spectrum of quality of published (paper) books, I would rank my ereader to be right smack in the middle. Then there's the obvious: Ereaders are much more practical on a plane, etc. My first one was 5 inches (which is small - would not recommend). It fit in my jacket pocket. Any time I was stuck somewhere (e.g. mechanic waiting for my car), it was quite convenient to take it out and read on it. Finally, years ago I had nasty tendonitis in my arms. Holding a heavy hardbound book and reading was painful. The ereader was my constant companion through those months of pain. Obviously, I still read printed books, but to me, on the whole, the two are roughly equal.
    • znpy 10y ago
      > On the whole spectrum of quality of published (paper) books Well, not until someone proposes a 10-11" e-reader that doesn't cost half my salary. The biggest disappointment with my e-reader is that reading PDFs is awful on that ridiculous display. We might have nice, readable fonts and pictures, with zoom too, and instead...
      • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        If you're like me, you've spent many times that on books. E-readers often have books at a discount or even free. So its a value proposition: how many e-books over what time make it a bargain?
• sampl 10y ago
  We made a parody video of 53's Paper app video. It's making the same point: https://vimeo.com/127749826 https://vimeo.com/127749826
• uselpa 10y ago
  To me paper is a temporary GTD-style "Inbox" which quickly captures draft information until it can be put into a trusted electronic system. I guess I am too hooked on backups, tagging and searching, as well as the possibility of encrypting sensitive information.
• davidw 10y ago
  I'm dismayed they didn't get in touch with us at http://73primenumbers.com/ http://73primenumbers.com/ for a quote!
• Karunamon 10y ago
  Every now and then, it seems a thread of luddism creeps through the geek psyche - and here we see it again. For all the benefits being talked up by the authors and the posters here, a few things are being overlooked: * Paper isn't searchable. Say whatever you want about how it lets you clear your mind, but what use is all this information you're taking down if you can't easily locate it later? * Paper media doesn't have adblock. If you want to talk about distraction... * Paper media can't be reformatted to make the fine print less fine, or to fix an awful font choice or layout, etc. * Paper is a pain to handle. Any serious amount of writing is going to require desks, filing cabinets, and so forth, more physical stuff to organize other physical stuff, when an entire lifetime of plaintext notes could fit on a MicroSD card of modest capacity. * Paper isn't safe. The aforementioned MicroSD card can be trivially backed up an indefinite number of times and rendered immune to fire, theft, kids, angry exes, acts of God, acts of Cthulu, and pets. And not to mention, encryption. While you can, technically, RSA encrypt your paperwork by hand[1], it's almost certainly not an efficient use of your time. I've no doubt that these hard copy systems work for the people that say it works, but I can't help but imagine there's a certain irrational rejection of technology happening, borne out of a refusal to leave the comfort zone when even something ridiculously easy like Simplenote or Notational Velocity would provide actual efficiency gains. 1: http://sergematovic.tripod.com/rsa1.html http://sergematovic.tripod.com/rsa1.html
  • TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
    Thoughts are more than just letters and punctuations. I can't write down the majority of things in my head with just letters and punctuation. Seems like language is getting in the way of writing down thoughts when you are relying on a screen and a qwerty keyboard as your only choice of input.
• JulianMorrison 10y ago
  "Paper" used to mean endless soul-destroying reams of office printout, or before that, typed memos. And thank goodness, that seems to be receding. The new "paper" isn't really the same thing. Like handwriting, woodblock printing, and the making of books from hand-inked parchment, it is receding into a handicraft.
  • bduerst 10y ago
    "Stationery" is probably the term you're looking for.
  • keithpeter 10y ago
    Yes, but in the era before the reams of printout, we had notebooks produced by local stationery printers in styles that varied shop to shop. I miss that local choice and small scale production. UK: anyone remember the hard backed board notebooks with marbled covers and canvas spines in around 10 by 8 inch format?
    • refset 10y ago
      > anyone remember the hard backed board notebooks with marbled covers and canvas spine Yes! Although my only encounter with them was when they were handed out for use as "lab books" during university. They certainly felt like a night-and-day upgrade over whatever was given out in school classrooms. Tuition fees well invested...
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• matchagaucho 10y ago
  For me, paper is necessary for mindmaps, or any task that exercises spatial intelligence and building relationships between concepts.
• sloam 10y ago
  I can't use paper since my wrist injury. Writing now get's sudden jolting punctuation of pain, depending on the motion. Typing on the other hand is painless for me. So now I use a combination of Dropbox Paper, OneNote (in office) and plaintext. And like others have said, Ctrl+F is gold!
• iamatworknow 10y ago
  There definitely is an appeal to the analog and the idea of slowing down to be more creative and productive. Photography is a hobby of mine. I own a Nikon D500, which is one of Nikon's flagship professional DSLR cameras. It can shoot at 10 frames per second with a buffer of 200 shots. The storage cards hold thousands of images. All of this is great when you're shooting high-speed action where every shot in a short time frame counts, but it also means there's very little risk in each shot. So if you take 900 pictures and only 9 are keepers it's no big deal. I shoot in RAW mode so any type of color and lighting adjustments can be made in post, and the resolution's high enough that I can crop for a good composition after the fact. But recently I've decided to get into plain old fashioned 35mm film photography. The equipment is all still relatively inexpensive, but the film costs $5-10 per roll of 24 or 36 exposures. Then you either have to send the film out to be developed, which can take days or weeks (since there are very few places that do it in house anymore), or you can develop it yourself (as I have started to do) which involves an hour long process mixing chemicals, making sure everything's the right temperature, shaking and stirring, drying and cutting, then finally scanning the processed film. Each shot has more risk, and so you take more time and compose more carefully, which makes the end result that much better. I've found it to be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding.
  • ar15saveslives 10y ago
    You can buy a 1Gb SD card for every photo session, and throw it to garbage after it's full. Don't lie to yourself, you just like film and paper itself, and all that stuff and smells around the process. :-) (me too)
    • iamatworknow 10y ago
      Ah, ya got me! I just love that grain, but I haven't started printing yet. Unfortunately my darkroom (read: bathroom) isn't quite big enough for that -- a larger bathroom will be a must in my next apartment.
  • GuiA 10y ago
    I assume you're developing black and white, since doing color at home is impossible unless you basically have a dedicated lab for it, which even the most hardcore photographers have a hard time justifying. As you get used to developing, you'll get faster at it; i can now do a few rolls in 30 minutes easily. I'd also suggest that you look into doing your own printing. The chemical process is nothing different from scanning negatives; you do need an enlarger, which can be a pain to set up at home- check into any local photo clubs. (there is Harvey Milk Photo Center in SF that I recommend) The satisfaction you'll get from it will go even beyond developing just the film; and the results are much more creatively rewarding than negative scanning.
• throwaway26960 10y ago
  The advantage of paper is that you can be more creative and use slow thinking[1]. Just take a look at Newton's[2] or DaVinci's[3] notebooks, how would they think so freely on a computer? Sure for a work task list, a computer is fine, but I find a computer too limiting on my creativity for myself. Added bonus: no ads, bugs, or distractions. People that create apps create them to make money, not because they make you more productive or help you be more creative. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp... [2]https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton [3]http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_f001r http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_...
  • nomel 10y ago
    For me, the benefit comes from two limitations: - The slow and physical aspect allows you to think about and consider the idea, as you're writing it. - The negative reinforcement, for that slow consideration, caused by from the permanence of your mistakes or a tired hand. But, I don't think paper has to be involved. I see it as an indication of a lack of good stylus input in most devices. I now use a large iPad Pro, with the stylus...err...Apple Pencil, and have no desire to go back to paper. Having the pages backed up to the cloud, being able to insert links and media when necessary, and being able to quickly switch colors, is all too valuable. If good stylus input gets cheaper, I don't, personally, see a justification for paper.
    • leesalminen 10y ago
      I also have switched entirely to a big iPad Pro + pencil. Works great. Notability also lets you record sound and can play it back in sync with your notes.
    • rahoulb 10y ago
      I'll also add that having tried lots of alternatives, the iPad Pro with pencil is the only thing that comes close to real pen and paper (but still falls a bit short)
    • 10y ago
• programminggeek 10y ago
  This is not surprising to me at all. I tried a ton of notes and todo list tracking apps and they all sucked for one reason or another and always ended up in not being the right tool for the job. Eventually, my friend and I ended up designing our own notebooks and crafting our initial prototypes by hand until we came up with something that we use everyday. It's up for sale on Amazon and we have a lot of happy customers. It's not changing the world and we aren't VC backed or anything fancy like that, but it's great to make something real that people love to use. If you're curious about any of the process, I'd be happy to answer any questions and if you want to check out the notebooks they are available here... https://www.amazon.com/Unbranded-Pocket-Notebook-3-pack-Notebooks/dp/B00ZGE1914/ https://www.amazon.com/Unbranded-Pocket-Notebook-3-pack-Note...
• cr0sh 10y ago
  I think one thing this article hits on may be spot-on - at least in my recent experience - they mention this study: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581 When I enrolled into the Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree, I made the conscious decision to try taking "dead tree" notes. Before, when I had done other machine learning MOOCs, I had taken notes using other methods, but I found that I didn't retain as much of the information after the courses were completed. So this time, having read that paper in the past, I decided to try longhand note taking instead. So far, I have found it wonderful - for the most part. Sometimes it is tedious. Overall, it has worked out well for me. For my notes, I use 100 sheet single-subject grid notebooks with micro-perf tear-out sheets. I use pencil for my notes, and when needed, fine-tipped sharpie pens in four colors (red, green, blue, black) for when I need the contrast (useful for graphs or emphasis). I write on one side of each page only. When I complete the course, I intend to write up an index, and move the notebooks into three-ring binders. I might even scan the pages and turn them into PDFs or something. I have also found that a form of the Cornell method of note-taking has been very useful as well; although it isn't as conducive to some uses - but I've made it work well enough. Are there downsides? Yes. The main downside, from the standpoint of a MOOC, is the amount of time it takes to take the notes. This makes each "lesson" in the course take much longer to complete due to the transcription of the notes (I am not quite fast enough, or have the skill, to transcribe from video as I watch it - I'm still trying to figure out a solution to that - because trying to condense the information about machine learning as it is talked about and such isn't an easy task, even with the ability to pause). A secondary downside (though maybe one that is my issue partly) is when I have written my note titles with one particular title (and more importantly, the lesson number), and then the MOOC admins (or whomever) decide to add a new lesson "in the middle" or alter things to re-number the lessons slightly. Now, your notes don't match up to the syllabus and courses, which can be a real pain to review things. So far, in my current course, this has happened twice. Ugh. But as far as retention of the material? I think this time around I have much better retention and understanding than I gained from my previous ventures in the same space. For that, it's been worth the issues I have experienced.
• jeron 10y ago
  I thought Paper referred to the Facebook app that shut down a couple years back
• wyc 10y ago
  Trying to remove technology from our lives seems to be a current trend. Don't hate technology just because it's technology. Instead, we should think about what new undesirable behaviors it introduces and how to address those deeper issues. I quite like my phone, but I also value setting it aside as much as possible when in the pleasure of someone's company. I don't recommend we backpedal on important advances in sanitation, sustainable power, etc. just because the transistor counts are getting too high.
• noir_lord 10y ago
  One of my "when I have some time" projects is to make a 'better' (in that it fits my usage case) scanner for all my notebooks, I want something intelligent that I just put a pad under and it takes an image, converts it to pdf and stores it and that detects when I turn the page and takes the next image rather than having to press a button (though that's an option with a floor button). I have the design in my head I just need to build one.
• gbuk2013 10y ago
  Obligatory DIY Planner link :) http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official
• marvindanig 10y ago
  There is also one more thing to factor in: freedom from a bunch of weirdos (both pigs and wolves) who want to track every move I make, every purchase I do or every interest that I share over the wire. Thank you paper. I can shred, burn or let you decompose in the rain to enforce my right of forgetability!
• archagon 10y ago
  I'm 100% onboard with the paper paradigm for my project-related note-taking, but I've moved over to using GoodNotes with my iPad and Pencil[1] over actual paper and graphite. It's basically as good as the real thing, but you also get a pristine PDF version of your notebook once you're done with your doodling. No doubt that there's a charm to leafing through a pile of your ragged, dog-eared Moleskines as an occasional nostalgia trip, but I've found myself returning to my old notebooks far more often now that they're sitting in a folder on my Dropbox. In searching for an app like this, one of my main requirements was that the app produce standard data as output, so that if it shut down or the company went out of business all my journals would still be safe. Fortunately, the PDFs GoodNotes spits out are basically pristine copies of its internal data model: vector graphics, multiple layers (including one for the paper texture), and even hidden OCR text. [1]: http://beta-blog.archagon.net/2016/08/30/on-the-wonders-of-digital-journaling/ http://beta-blog.archagon.net/2016/08/30/on-the-wonders-of-d...
  • goerz 10y ago
    I also moved to GoodNotes entirely. It combines all the benefits of paper and digital: it's exactly as flexible as paper, but also editable. This is a huge deal: I can refine my handwritten notes by easily moving things around, adding paragraphs, etc. I can also reorder and move pages around between notebooks easily, and it's fully searchable. the iPad Pro having the same size as a sheet of paper, the Apple Pencil being the first stylus that has low enough latency to make you forget it's not a real pen, and well-designed software like GoodNotes really has been a revolutionary combination for me.
• no_wizard 10y ago
  I still use paper to model application modes or write quick snippets of code when I'm stuck on something in particular, like a function. There seems to be some (to me at least) benefit to taking my mind away from the screen and doing the same task on paper that allows me to have some breakthroughs. I will say however, since I got an iPad Pro, I been using an App called Notebook by Zoho https://www.zoho.com/notebook/ https://www.zoho.com/notebook/ I have to say, it simulates the paper experience enough with the pencil that I seem to get the same benefit. I really enjoy it and I can still sync my notes across devices and it supports simple text edits checklists inserting photos and links and other cool things. I have to say its pretty darn good and I seem to get the same focus experience using this as I do when I use actual paper. Maybe its the fact that when you are writing like this its the slowdown effect?
  • archagon 10y ago
    I use an app called GoodNotes for the exact same reason[1], except in an even more analog way: no typed text, checklists, or anything else — just writing and sketching. Bonus: pristine PDF notebooks (covers and all) in my Dropbox once I'm done with my work! [1]: http://beta-blog.archagon.net/2016/08/30/on-the-wonders-of-digital-journaling/ http://beta-blog.archagon.net/2016/08/30/on-the-wonders-of-d...
• ryderpcarroll 10y ago
  For those interested in the some of the underlying philosophy of the Bullet Journal®, check out the TED talk that just went live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6OYelD5fA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6OYelD5fA
• ryderpcarroll 10y ago
  For those interested in the some of the underlying philosophy of the Bullet Journal®, check out the TED talk that just went live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6OYelD5fA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6OYelD5fA
• bleair 10y ago
  Paper has donwisdes (can get wet, takes longer to photocopy to give to others) but it wins because of how it works with my noise/lossy mind. There are elements of a physical thing (location on page, rough location within notebook, did I end up skrunching additional ideas and notes on the side, etc.). These things aren't as exact as search/ctl-f but these extra associations help my ability to recall. The other win with paper for me is that with a computer my brain keeps wanting to switch from writing mode to editing mode - as in "oh, that reads poorly, let me rewrite that, wait let me move this around". With paper, unless I actively choose to re-write an entire page or section my brain is less distracted (I'm easily distracted though - squirrel! :)
• rshm 10y ago
  For past several years I have Command+W mapped to sublime text opening text file named wiki for any notes on computer. Mostly copy paste and ctrl+f. For any TODO or small notes i fall back to half sized index cards 3"x2.5". For brainstorm use yellow legal pads with pilot V5 and tear them off once done.
• jxy 10y ago
  I have a feeling that when paper came out, parchment had probably been praised as "the real 'killer surface'". By the way, writing in sand is really much better than writing with a chunk of graphite. Clean hands!
• erikpukinskis 10y ago
  I think the reason digital doodling hasn't taken off yet is the UIs are too complicated. They are designed for professionals and have lots of ways to do things. And the reason for that is we don't have a good drawing layer library yet. If developers could throw together simple drawing apps in a weekend, we could test more interactions and maybe find one that holds a candle to a pen. Remember: it took a long time to develop the modern pen. If we were still dipping feathers in inkwells I suspect this thread might be more forgiving toward digital drawing UIs.
• doikor 10y ago
  Is there something wrong with me when I'm the opposite? I can't even read my own handwriting all that well :( I just write everything in notepad (or vim/emacs) and store the plain text files on my server (and take some backups)
  • tshadley 10y ago
    Me too! The speed and efficiency of typing, editing, saving, searching, how can paper compete with that? Vim just needs a graphics plugin and we're set.
    • brennen 10y ago
      There's DrawIt: http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=40 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=40 ...but really I'd like to figure out a good workflow for dropping screenshots and MyPaint sketches into vimwiki diary entries.
  • jasonthevillain 10y ago
    Nope. They're different tools. They do different things. I find paper keeps me sane in a hyper-multi-tasked distraction heavy over-Slacked world. What made it work was an idea I borrowed from Bullet Journal -- every task needs gets finished, copied to the current timeframe, or deliberately abandoned. You could easily do this in a text file or notetaking app, I just spend so much time staring at screens that it's refreshing to have a tool that isn't one.
• mentos 10y ago
  Could anyone see a flexible piece of LED display with the surface texture of a piece of paper ever being a product? (iPaper) ?
  • catshirt 10y ago
    yes of course.
• Ezhik 10y ago
  For note taking, I generally stick to first writing things down on paper, then copying them to OneNote later. I figure this gives me the best of both worlds, I get the better retention from handwriting, get to review my notes as I copy them, and get the notes in a format I can always access. Organization, though... Man, no matter how hard I try, I just can't stick to any organization system, paper or digital. I wanted to bullet journal, I really did, but I have notebooks worth of failed organizing attempts. It's sad.
• jwtadvice 10y ago
  Another advantage to paper is that you can invent your own notation (this seems to be the primary innovation of "bullet journaling). The full 2D space and the relationship of symbols is available to you on paper, whereas on the computer we are still struggling to enable this type of expression. There's some question about whether Feynman would have invented Feynman diagrams had he been restricted to Latex.
• dbuxton 10y ago
  Came here expecting to find recognition for Dropbox Paper, which is pretty much my favourite app. Ironically, mainly because it's not very flexible and doesn't give you many options around appearance, so saves faffing around that. (Good work Hackpad team btw).
• WalterBright 10y ago
  Taking notes works far better on paper. Then scan the notes into the computer, and you get the best of both.
• sengork 10y ago
  Free form paper still fills in the gap where computers/tablets/phones are too cumbersome and just slow the process down. Sometimes the simplest tool happens to be the most effective tool (paperless office hasn't fully happened yet). Another aspect to consider is the process of writing often leads to insights that you may not have stumbled upon whilst using a keyboard/touch screen for writing the same message. This may be due to the speed of writing relative to the speed of creative thought. It may also stem out of less distractions encountered during the paper writing process vs a busy computer screen.
• pka 10y ago
  Often, when I need to get familiar with a particularly tricky piece of code, I print it out and start annotating the printout, drawing arrows between dependent functions, visualizing data structures, algorithms and data flow, simplifying fragments in the margins, highlighting important stuff with different colors. For fragments of code where search is not needed this is just such a superior experience. I dream of some day being able to do the same in a code editor with i.e. diagrams in comments or graphical annotations right there in the code. The same applies to writing code. Being able to visualize hard-to-describe concepts on a piece of paper makes the overall algorithm as well as early design mistakes and edge cases much more obvious. When I'm writing just text (todo lists, product ideas, whatever) and being able to easily edit, archive or search through the text a normal editor is a much better choice, but I'm not gonna ditch paper anytime soon.
• rhelsing 10y ago
  I use paper everyday but am getting tired of buying expensive notebooks and taking pictures of my pages. Interesting that this would be on the front page today. I just impulse preordered a remarkable tablet: (https://getremarkable.com https://getremarkable.com). I was experiencing some buyers remorse. Seeing this article lifted my spirits substantially.
• jg2009 10y ago
  Amazing !
• brooksdra 10y ago
  It seems the process of writing notes longhand instead of typing into a computer may have a positive effect on the retention and understanding of information by students. This link is to a 2014 study by Pam A. Mueller and Prof. Danial Oppenheimer. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797614524581 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797614524581
• jg2009 10y ago
  throwaway26960 7 days ago [-] The advantage of paper is that you can be more creative and use slow thinking[1]. Just take a look at Newton's[2] or DaVinci's[3] notebooks, how would they think so freely on a computer? Sure for a work task list, a computer is fine, but I find a computer too limiting on my creativity for myself. Added bonus: no ads, bugs, or distractions. People that create apps create them to make money, not because they make you more productive or help you be more creative. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp.. https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp.... [2]https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/newton [3]http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_.. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=arundel_ms_263_.... reply nomel 6 days ago [-]