4 ms·

Ask HN: How does an hacker (you) write his notes in the notebook

Apparently a notebook and a pen is the most loved gadgets of hackers. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245560 I am not surprised with this, in fact I love making notes about everything. But how do you guys organize these notes? Does your notebook has sections ? Does it have an index? Do you write in plain English or have you developed your own shorthand ? I liked the book "Personal Software Process" and my note-making is largely inspired from that. I have an Table of Contents, Timelog, Sections, Plans for the week-ahead, review of last week and a running counter which tells me how much time I am spending on each activity every week. What about you guys ?

bartonfink 16y ago
I just date everything and avoid structure. I use paper as a free-form extension of my own memory, so everything needs to be as ad-hoc as possible.
mkr-hn 16y ago
I use a mix of a small hard-backed notebook and OneNote.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Date and initial each page in the corner. Right-side page for topics, left-side for scratch. Summarize every couple of days with a Todo list on a fresh page; check off items on previous pages. Review last dozen pages every few days, looking for un-checked items.
- Swannie 16y ago
  Pretty similar here too. For work, with a nice A4 pad: I only date if it's a meeting/phone call. Otherwise I'm a bit lax, never found that to be a problem. I don't distinguish between scratch and "tidy". Tidy means it probably should be in a version controlled document. Which means I usually draw a box around it to remind myself to document it. Also I place a single diagonal line through "dead" pages or parts of pages. A good reminder to go back and document/deal with stuff that isn't crossed out. I've played with folding/snipping corners of dead pages, leaving only very useful stuff un-folded. Works well for day book type stuff, but not if you're noting concepts/ideas you'll reference again. I leave the first pages free, and have some kind of index/overview. Back pages are usually for quick notes that are unrelated to current stuff. If it's a new project, always flick 2 pages or so forwards, to give space for tidy up of old project/handover work. For less formal notes, I use coloured stickies in my notebook - good for phone numbers/email addresses of people in meetings/on calls/to contact. Whilst one-note looks great, my notebooks consist mostly of: diagrams, free form tables, nested lists & flowcharts. Only if I'm reviewing for personal use do I have dense text. Want to figure out how to integrate whiteboard photos into my processes nicely though!
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    Date/initial vital for patent filing.
silent1mezzo 16y ago
I categorize it into Random Thoughts, Startup Ideas and Programming snippets (things I think of for my current projects).
JonLim 16y ago
> an hacker Urge to kill... rising...
noig3 16y ago
I use notepad as well as dead tree notepads and pen. Any kind of ball point pen. The notepad must be a reporters notepad or a regular sized notepad. I dislike writing on pieces of paper that are too small.

bartonfink 16y ago

I just date everything and avoid structure. I use paper as a free-form extension of my own memory, so everything needs to be as ad-hoc as possible.

mkr-hn 16y ago

I use a mix of a small hard-backed notebook and OneNote.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Date and initial each page in the corner. Right-side page for topics, left-side for scratch. Summarize every couple of days with a Todo list on a fresh page; check off items on previous pages. Review last dozen pages every few days, looking for un-checked items.

Swannie 16y ago
Pretty similar here too. For work, with a nice A4 pad: I only date if it's a meeting/phone call. Otherwise I'm a bit lax, never found that to be a problem. I don't distinguish between scratch and "tidy". Tidy means it probably should be in a version controlled document. Which means I usually draw a box around it to remind myself to document it. Also I place a single diagonal line through "dead" pages or parts of pages. A good reminder to go back and document/deal with stuff that isn't crossed out. I've played with folding/snipping corners of dead pages, leaving only very useful stuff un-folded. Works well for day book type stuff, but not if you're noting concepts/ideas you'll reference again. I leave the first pages free, and have some kind of index/overview. Back pages are usually for quick notes that are unrelated to current stuff. If it's a new project, always flick 2 pages or so forwards, to give space for tidy up of old project/handover work. For less formal notes, I use coloured stickies in my notebook - good for phone numbers/email addresses of people in meetings/on calls/to contact. Whilst one-note looks great, my notebooks consist mostly of: diagrams, free form tables, nested lists & flowcharts. Only if I'm reviewing for personal use do I have dense text. Want to figure out how to integrate whiteboard photos into my processes nicely though!
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Date/initial vital for patent filing.

silent1mezzo 16y ago

I categorize it into Random Thoughts, Startup Ideas and Programming snippets (things I think of for my current projects).

JonLim 16y ago

> an hacker Urge to kill... rising...

noig3 16y ago

I use notepad as well as dead tree notepads and pen. Any kind of ball point pen. The notepad must be a reporters notepad or a regular sized notepad. I dislike writing on pieces of paper that are too small.