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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

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.
- peatmoss 10y ago
  I'll add that I've used Mobile-org and even tried Evernote on mobile. I cannot for the life of me figure out how people use mobile note-taking apps. Even with a bluetooth keyboard the UX is so slow / inflexible compared to paper. I've seen people apparently use them to reasonable effect though, so I'm going to assume that people capable of note-taking on mobile are just a more evolved kind of human than I am :-)
  - ddingus 10y ago
    This is why I've got a Samsung note. It's response is sufficient to capture in paper like fashion. I still prefer paper, but the little note app that ships with the phone works very well.
  - abakker 10y ago
    As someone who writes for a living, I can appreciate mobile note taking. Flexibility of the app is not really the important part - I frequently use apple's notes app. But, in those cases what I'm really doing is "pre-writing" not note taking. I'm not capturing ideas, I'm already interpreting them before I write them down, adding structure as I go. In paper, I tend to really note-take. I like note-taking on paper for things I don't really understand yet. I prefer pre-writing in an app for situations where my understanding of the topic is good, and I want to skip steps (e.g. writing a blog post about a presentation, where the topic is already familiar) Now, in fairness, I have recently started using SimpleMind for mind-mapping real-time. I find it does a good job at doing both things. It helps me build a narrative structure in one branch, while capturing notes in others. It also gives me a lot of nice flexibility on-screen to rearrange branches, relocate topics and do other general house-keeping.
tlikonen 10y ago
I use Emacs' org-mode for pretty much all my work notes. It's very structured, long and includes spreadsheets. But usually I don't use my laptop during work. Instead I print just day's notes (schedule etc.) to a single paper sheet and keep the note paper with me. I do corrections and maybe add notes with a pen. Then later at home I modify my org-mode files to match my note paper.

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.

peatmoss 10y ago
I'll add that I've used Mobile-org and even tried Evernote on mobile. I cannot for the life of me figure out how people use mobile note-taking apps. Even with a bluetooth keyboard the UX is so slow / inflexible compared to paper. I've seen people apparently use them to reasonable effect though, so I'm going to assume that people capable of note-taking on mobile are just a more evolved kind of human than I am :-)
- ddingus 10y ago
  This is why I've got a Samsung note. It's response is sufficient to capture in paper like fashion. I still prefer paper, but the little note app that ships with the phone works very well.
- abakker 10y ago
  As someone who writes for a living, I can appreciate mobile note taking. Flexibility of the app is not really the important part - I frequently use apple's notes app. But, in those cases what I'm really doing is "pre-writing" not note taking. I'm not capturing ideas, I'm already interpreting them before I write them down, adding structure as I go. In paper, I tend to really note-take. I like note-taking on paper for things I don't really understand yet. I prefer pre-writing in an app for situations where my understanding of the topic is good, and I want to skip steps (e.g. writing a blog post about a presentation, where the topic is already familiar) Now, in fairness, I have recently started using SimpleMind for mind-mapping real-time. I find it does a good job at doing both things. It helps me build a narrative structure in one branch, while capturing notes in others. It also gives me a lot of nice flexibility on-screen to rearrange branches, relocate topics and do other general house-keeping.

tlikonen 10y ago

I use Emacs' org-mode for pretty much all my work notes. It's very structured, long and includes spreadsheets. But usually I don't use my laptop during work. Instead I print just day's notes (schedule etc.) to a single paper sheet and keep the note paper with me. I do corrections and maybe add notes with a pen. Then later at home I modify my org-mode files to match my note paper.