It's definitely early days for me, but I've recently shifted from all pen-and-sketch-pad to just getting more comfortable with LaTeX and entering more stuff dir

It's definitely early days for me, but I've recently shifted from all pen-and-sketch-pad to just getting more comfortable with LaTeX and entering more stuff directly into LaTeX. I find it makes me think more carefully. I've put some effort into getting immediate rendering on file change using Skim and various little bits of Emacs lisp to make LaTeX editing convenient. (I'm sure I've got plenty to learn about what the LaTeX modes that come with my editor can do as well).