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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, E

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/
- mattferderer 10y ago
  I like this idea a lot, though the Amazon reviews for that particular product appear to be pretty negative. Have you used a workflow like this?
  - Ajedi32 10y ago
    No, I usually do everything digitally. Livescribe was just the first thing that came up when I searched for "smart pen". There are other options though: http://www.toptenreviews.com/electronics/family/best-digital-pens/ http://www.toptenreviews.com/electronics/family/best-digital... There's also the Rocketbook, which uses a mobile app to scan pages instead: https://getrocketbook.com/ https://getrocketbook.com/
marchenko 10y ago
Your current workflow is actually quite good for information retention and organisation. You have the benefit of manually entering your notes and organising them in physical space in a notebook (remember to doodle in the margins for even better retention!). Then you revisit them later to optimise them for indexing and search in a digital folder. Moving data from short-term to long-term storage in the brain is hard work and there are few shortcuts. The real question is whether it would be sufficient to outsource storing and search to a digital solution rather than doing the work "in-house" in your head.
- mattferderer 10y ago
  Thank you. On your last sentence, I am debating that. I'm going to try the photo/OCR features in Evernote/OneNote. I feel there is a lot to gain by me doing the work instead of outsourcing it in terms of revisiting the information to help build long term memory.

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/

mattferderer 10y ago
I like this idea a lot, though the Amazon reviews for that particular product appear to be pretty negative. Have you used a workflow like this?
- Ajedi32 10y ago
  No, I usually do everything digitally. Livescribe was just the first thing that came up when I searched for "smart pen". There are other options though: http://www.toptenreviews.com/electronics/family/best-digital-pens/ http://www.toptenreviews.com/electronics/family/best-digital... There's also the Rocketbook, which uses a mobile app to scan pages instead: https://getrocketbook.com/ https://getrocketbook.com/

marchenko 10y ago

Your current workflow is actually quite good for information retention and organisation. You have the benefit of manually entering your notes and organising them in physical space in a notebook (remember to doodle in the margins for even better retention!). Then you revisit them later to optimise them for indexing and search in a digital folder. Moving data from short-term to long-term storage in the brain is hard work and there are few shortcuts. The real question is whether it would be sufficient to outsource storing and search to a digital solution rather than doing the work "in-house" in your head.

mattferderer 10y ago
Thank you. On your last sentence, I am debating that. I'm going to try the photo/OCR features in Evernote/OneNote. I feel there is a lot to gain by me doing the work instead of outsourcing it in terms of revisiting the information to help build long term memory.