5 ms·

Cue the HN note-taking crowd.... From a retention/recall perspective, I think most people are enamored with finding the perfect note-taking method because we w

by wenc 6y ago

Cue the HN note-taking crowd.... From a retention/recall perspective, I think most people are enamored with finding the perfect note-taking method because we want to find the one method that optimizes both retention (memory) + recall (long term searchability) at the same time. It seems to me these two objectives are somewhat in competition. (there's also comprehension and thinking but I see those as separate) I think splitting up the two objectives makes more sense. Handwriting notes enhances memory formation, but is less optimized for searchability. Digital notes are great for long-term searchability, but are weaker for memory formation. Why not have two systems instead of one? Just handwrite whatever you want to remember, and type whatever you want to stash away? It seems inefficient, but in multiobjective optimization we usually end up with Pareto optimality rather than a single point of optimality. One might ask, how would I know a priori what to remember and what to stash? I personally prefer handwriting, so I'll usually go there first and if I need to stash it I'll retype it into Google Docs. That said, I'll hop on Google Docs first if it happens to be more convenient (like if I'm browsing and want to copy-and-paste something for long-term storage, or if I'm outdoors and all I have on me is my phone) Meetings are a great candidate for handwriting notes -- and then discarding. You and I know that most meeting notes are throwaways. Despite that, I personally find that in complex multiparty meetings, I'm able to follow the flow better if I continuously take notes. Being able to remember who said what, and being able to summarize a meeting are all very valuable skills to have. (p.s. with regard to memory, Socrates didn't even believe in writing -- he believed writing things down would weaken our memories in the long term. He believed that talking about things was a far superior way to form memories and to understand subjects deeply. He's not completely wrong about the role of discussion and disputation [emotional connection is a potent force in memory formation], but all the same I'm glad Plato didn't take to this thinking and actually wrote stuff down).

bluehatbrit 6y ago
I think I'm in general agreement with you. I spent quite a while trying out different note taking apps. Super simple ones like iA and Bear, over to things like org mode. Eventually I just settled on pencil and paper and I've been really happy with that for a few years now. If I need to write something to stash, as you say, it's usually for other people as well when at work. There I have no choice, it's either the wiki or a google doc and I'll polish up my hand written notes and diagrams. On the rare occasion I want to write something to keep for myself it'll either be some sort of markdown document on my drive, or a draft post on my blog if it 's more general musings. Usually I'll hand write notes in a meeting, that way I can leave the laptop at my desk (pre-covid), and then I'll write up a more coherent document later on if needed. Pencil and paper is just great, I can do whatever I want, I can rub it out and start again, and the semi-permanance makes me care slightly less about it being perfect. I can't move the notes onto another page unless I re-write them, so sometimes I do if I really need to and otherwise I just move on. I did end up spending out on some pencils that feel nice to use, but it's a tiny expense compared to subscriptions for many of the note apps out there.
abhgh 6y ago
Avid note-taker here. I agree with you in that the two mediums - (1) a note taking software where you type in things (2) writing notes on paper - have different benefits and use-cases. In my case, I pretty much now know what kind goes where. For the "planning" kind - these are TODOs, movie and reading lists, project ideas, project subtasks -they go into a tool like Notion, or Google Keep if they are very simple transient lists. What I need here are: the ability to search, modify in place (not strike-throughs), and access on any device (so this s/w typically is cloud-enabled). The last aspect is needed because I need a way to accommodate ad-hoc ideas into a larger pre-existing plan, when I am travelling and I just have my phone, or a different laptop. When I am reading a paper, or watching a lecture, I strongly prefer handwritten notes. I have experimented with standard notebooks, moleskins, having a "two-level" system: one notebook for quick notes, and another one for well-formed versions of notes from the first one, and finally, taking notes on loose foolscaps and adding them to a folder. The last one has stuck, mostly because I don't have to worry about "wasting" pages with ill-formed notes; I can choose not to add it to the folder. Also I can change organization at a later date. For this category of notes, I am looking for: the handwriting experience, the ability to arbitrarily format and color things (very helpful for technical material that need diagrams). PS: the article links to some ways of structuring notes, which seem interesting.
ghaff 6y ago
There's another aspect to note taking under some circumstances. That is doing writeups of events, interviews, etc. (I often write for publications.) There are a few different approaches. 1. The traditional one where you take fast handwritten notes in whatever semi-shorthand scrawl you use. If you're used to doing this you can usually capture enough close to verbatim to write a story. 2. The same thing with typing. This has a couple of advantages. It's mostly faster and I can form the core of a story pretty quickly with some cutting and pasting. 3. Record and take more limited notes (and optionally use one of the AI services to transcribe). This will typically give you the best accuracy but, because you find yourself having to refer back to the original audio and just have to deal with more material, it takes more time.
vivekd 6y ago
I looked into solving this efficiency problem using OCRs and my attempts were a disaster. It's amazing to me that voice recognition is moving along much faster than handwriting recognition. You'd think the second problem was simpler. Possibly more time and effort has been put into the speech problem.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  I think the "efficiency problem" isn't solved by optimizing text input, but by eliminating unrelated time wasters so you can invest time in what matters.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Voice recognition can be performed with simple algorithms on tiny processors on 1-bit data streams. There isn't a comparable system for handwriting.
MrFantastic 6y ago
I've taken pictures of my pencil diagrams. Label the photo well and you can reference easily.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
I've been a multi-decade notebook user and and recently been using an iPad to take notes. Just the default Apple notes app recognizes my cursive well enough to make my notes searchable and I don't feel any slower than with a traditional pen. It's a nicer experience than I'd been expecting, TBH.
aftergibson 6y ago
I’ve slowly come to realise those two goals to note taking (after wasting a lot of time trying to find the one true solution). So I now use a notebook and flashcards for bits I want to remember and org mode for anything searchable.
rsanek 6y ago
Note-taking in general, whether on paper or digitally, is pretty bad at improving retention [0]. There are far better techniques for furthering that goal, if that's the target; most obviously, active recall testing & distributed practice. Practically, most people use spaced repetition software like Anki [1] for that. [0] see table on page 45 in https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovinglearning.pdf https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi... [1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/
- wenc 6y ago
  Good point, but I would say "pretty bad" is relative in my opinion. I think of it as something like this: Mental notes < written notes < SRS < repeated exposure + emotional connection. Specifically around retention (and only retention), taking notes doesn't get you everything, but it gets you something. (I do feel some of us put undue focus on taking notes at the expense of understanding the world through empirical means, but that's another discussion. I'm focusing solely on retention here.). Active recall testing and distributed practice are great ideas. No disagreement there. (the Ebbinghaus curve is well known) (also, thanks for the link to the publication -- those are interesting results that describe aggregate outcomes for the population studied, but there's usually variation in individual outcomes, and in self-selected groups like this one, a different subset of techniques may dominate) To your point about Anki specifically, I'm a language learner and in my experience, flashcard-style SRS can help retention for atomic types of knowledge, but I find as I get to intermediate levels of a language, the utility of flashcards declines precipitously -- because one is called upon to synthesize structures rather than just words. So far I haven't found an easy way to encode structures into flashcards (clozes etc are too simplistic)... furthermore, language learning is complicated by the need to acquire a "feeling" for the context of how certain words are used. It's a kind of tacit knowledge that sometimes defies simple flashcard-type encodings. You can encode context through narrative, but then your flashcards become too unwieldy. I've found writing and speaking (with feedback) in small chunks over a long period of time to be much better at creating the "neurocircuitry" necessary for retention. Again, I wouldn't say flashcard SRS are bad at improving retention (I use them), but like taking notes, even if they don't get you all the way there, they get you somewhere.
abhayb 6y ago
Hello, yes, recent member of the HN note-taking crowd here. Throwaway meeting notes are exactly my use case. It helps that I do most of my thinking on paper anyway so I have a pen and pad handy at all times. For me it's all about focus. Writing is an activity that I enjoy doing independent of what I'm actually writing. Can't zone out if I'm taking notes which leaves me in a position to drop all of the many great insights I always have in every single meeting.
gregmac 6y ago
> Meetings are a great candidate for handwriting notes -- and then discarding. You and I know that most meeting notes are throwaways. I hate handwriting meeting notes! The only way they become useful is if they're saved and searchable (to refer back to weeks or months later), and since they're only sometimes useful, taking the extra time to transcribe is annoying. I can also type faster than I can (legibly) handwrite. So it makes more sense for me to skip the extra step. Aside, I actually find the metadata (who, when, and broad topics) is what I'm usually looking for. Anything immediate gets on my to-do list, or becomes a ticket, or is part of a bigger project I'm actively working on anyway. About the only thing I hand write anymore is actually my to-do list. I've tried dozens of apps and other methods, but always give up after a while. I use a 4x6 sticky note pad, and the killer feature is it gets full every couple days. This forces me to tear it off and start over, re-writing anything still active. After doing this with the same items for long enough, I either have to do them or admit they're not important anymore (or important enough) and drop them. Physically crossing stuff off and throwing away the old sticky notes is kind of cathartic.
- wenc 6y ago
  I hear you. The practicability of handwriting meeting notes does depend on a few assumptions being true, i.e. improved retention of the meeting would obviate the need to retrieve notes in the first place (not always true, but in my case, often true), and that if you needed to retrieve those notes, you could (again, depends). Me personally, I never transcribe my handwritten notes -- that would be too much work. But I do keep them in an unorganized pile (they're just loose sheets). If I ever needed to retrieve a note, I'll rifle through the pile and I can usually find what I need in 1-2 minutes (I don't attend THAT many meetings). It's not the most organized approach, but it's lightweight and it works for me. Paper isn't exactly unsearchable, merely less searchable than digital. (After all human civilization did exist before computers :) But typing up meeting notes in software works fine and has its advantages, especially if there's a need to share them or to follow-up on them.
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
I'm hoping my ReMarkable 2 pre-order will help me to do potentially both, although imperfect I think the physical act of note taking by hand seems like something I should do more of.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ende 6y ago
Enjoyed and agree with your comment. One useful hybrid approach is to view typed note taking as rapid capture of a rough draft, which if disciplined should lead to selective re-drafting of sections that require more thorough commitment to memory.
Terretta 6y ago
Used to fill a large size moleskin a month by hand, and for this sample size of one, the aid to recall from deciding what to write and processing it back out is remarkable. So, of course, I’ve tried the Remarkable pad, as well as apps like Goodnotes on iPad that try to support handwriting while also supporting search. Goodnotes suited my needs better, as the Remarkable pad latency was too high, though I did prefer the feel of writing. Apple materials research needs to get their glass and pencil closer to this. However, for recall, I find there’s something about the physicality of a paper notebook that gives the facts a place to live. With real x, y, and z dimensions in space, perhaps paper notebooks offer a fine grained version of the “memory palace” method of storing facts for in-memory browsing and recall. Digital notebooks as well as digital books on Kindle lack the physical depth of the relevant page. It seems likely a visual “depth” indicator would assist recall of information in e-books. Unclear how that would work in digital notepads unless they had a fixed quantity of “pages”. Aside from this loss of physical memory mapping, iOS 14’s handwriting to text is compelling. One gets to write notes out by hand, exercising that pathway, but what ends up on the page is real text. Haven’t played with this long enough to have any opinion on whether this transformation defeats recall.
- criddell 6y ago
  I have an iPad + Pencil and a Remarkable 2 is on the way. The iPad writing experience can be greatly improved with a matte screen protector that has a paper-like finish.
- emit_time 6y ago
  Can’t you get a screen protector that makes it feel more like paper?
  - larrywright 6y ago
    Yes, Moshi makes one that I have and like. It has the added benefit of adding some anti-glare to the iPad. The one I’ve heard the most praise for is called Paperlike: https://paperlike.com/ https://paperlike.com/
- Jaxan 6y ago
vira28 6y ago
Have been doing that pretty much. I use Typora for typed notes and Goodnotes/Notability for handwritten. Sometimes I even take screenshots of handwritten and attach them in Typora. One can ask why multiple apps? I really like Typora for its simplicity. Found Notabilty and Goodnotes macOS app really terrible :( Would love to hear thoughts of other folks.
higerordermap 6y ago
Is there some OCR software that can scan written notes and convert to searchable, digital text?
- Jaxan 6y ago
  I use OneNote on Windows. It is able to search through my handwritten notes, even without converting it (visually) to text. So yes. Edit: of course I write too sloppy for this to always work...
  - nunodonato 6y ago
    How are you taking the notes in the first place? Scan? Surface tablet?
    - Jaxan 6y ago
      Directly on the tablet

by wenc 6y ago

bluehatbrit 6y ago

I think I'm in general agreement with you. I spent quite a while trying out different note taking apps. Super simple ones like iA and Bear, over to things like org mode. Eventually I just settled on pencil and paper and I've been really happy with that for a few years now. If I need to write something to stash, as you say, it's usually for other people as well when at work. There I have no choice, it's either the wiki or a google doc and I'll polish up my hand written notes and diagrams. On the rare occasion I want to write something to keep for myself it'll either be some sort of markdown document on my drive, or a draft post on my blog if it 's more general musings. Usually I'll hand write notes in a meeting, that way I can leave the laptop at my desk (pre-covid), and then I'll write up a more coherent document later on if needed. Pencil and paper is just great, I can do whatever I want, I can rub it out and start again, and the semi-permanance makes me care slightly less about it being perfect. I can't move the notes onto another page unless I re-write them, so sometimes I do if I really need to and otherwise I just move on. I did end up spending out on some pencils that feel nice to use, but it's a tiny expense compared to subscriptions for many of the note apps out there.

abhgh 6y ago

Avid note-taker here. I agree with you in that the two mediums - (1) a note taking software where you type in things (2) writing notes on paper - have different benefits and use-cases. In my case, I pretty much now know what kind goes where. For the "planning" kind - these are TODOs, movie and reading lists, project ideas, project subtasks -they go into a tool like Notion, or Google Keep if they are very simple transient lists. What I need here are: the ability to search, modify in place (not strike-throughs), and access on any device (so this s/w typically is cloud-enabled). The last aspect is needed because I need a way to accommodate ad-hoc ideas into a larger pre-existing plan, when I am travelling and I just have my phone, or a different laptop. When I am reading a paper, or watching a lecture, I strongly prefer handwritten notes. I have experimented with standard notebooks, moleskins, having a "two-level" system: one notebook for quick notes, and another one for well-formed versions of notes from the first one, and finally, taking notes on loose foolscaps and adding them to a folder. The last one has stuck, mostly because I don't have to worry about "wasting" pages with ill-formed notes; I can choose not to add it to the folder. Also I can change organization at a later date. For this category of notes, I am looking for: the handwriting experience, the ability to arbitrarily format and color things (very helpful for technical material that need diagrams). PS: the article links to some ways of structuring notes, which seem interesting.

ghaff 6y ago

There's another aspect to note taking under some circumstances. That is doing writeups of events, interviews, etc. (I often write for publications.) There are a few different approaches. 1. The traditional one where you take fast handwritten notes in whatever semi-shorthand scrawl you use. If you're used to doing this you can usually capture enough close to verbatim to write a story. 2. The same thing with typing. This has a couple of advantages. It's mostly faster and I can form the core of a story pretty quickly with some cutting and pasting. 3. Record and take more limited notes (and optionally use one of the AI services to transcribe). This will typically give you the best accuracy but, because you find yourself having to refer back to the original audio and just have to deal with more material, it takes more time.

vivekd 6y ago

I looked into solving this efficiency problem using OCRs and my attempts were a disaster. It's amazing to me that voice recognition is moving along much faster than handwriting recognition. You'd think the second problem was simpler. Possibly more time and effort has been put into the speech problem.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
I think the "efficiency problem" isn't solved by optimizing text input, but by eliminating unrelated time wasters so you can invest time in what matters.
wizzwizz4 6y ago
Voice recognition can be performed with simple algorithms on tiny processors on 1-bit data streams. There isn't a comparable system for handwriting.

MrFantastic 6y ago

I've taken pictures of my pencil diagrams. Label the photo well and you can reference easily.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

I've been a multi-decade notebook user and and recently been using an iPad to take notes. Just the default Apple notes app recognizes my cursive well enough to make my notes searchable and I don't feel any slower than with a traditional pen. It's a nicer experience than I'd been expecting, TBH.

aftergibson 6y ago

I’ve slowly come to realise those two goals to note taking (after wasting a lot of time trying to find the one true solution). So I now use a notebook and flashcards for bits I want to remember and org mode for anything searchable.

rsanek 6y ago

Note-taking in general, whether on paper or digitally, is pretty bad at improving retention [0]. There are far better techniques for furthering that goal, if that's the target; most obviously, active recall testing & distributed practice. Practically, most people use spaced repetition software like Anki [1] for that. [0] see table on page 45 in https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovinglearning.pdf https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi... [1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/

wenc 6y ago
Good point, but I would say "pretty bad" is relative in my opinion. I think of it as something like this: Mental notes < written notes < SRS < repeated exposure + emotional connection. Specifically around retention (and only retention), taking notes doesn't get you everything, but it gets you something. (I do feel some of us put undue focus on taking notes at the expense of understanding the world through empirical means, but that's another discussion. I'm focusing solely on retention here.). Active recall testing and distributed practice are great ideas. No disagreement there. (the Ebbinghaus curve is well known) (also, thanks for the link to the publication -- those are interesting results that describe aggregate outcomes for the population studied, but there's usually variation in individual outcomes, and in self-selected groups like this one, a different subset of techniques may dominate) To your point about Anki specifically, I'm a language learner and in my experience, flashcard-style SRS can help retention for atomic types of knowledge, but I find as I get to intermediate levels of a language, the utility of flashcards declines precipitously -- because one is called upon to synthesize structures rather than just words. So far I haven't found an easy way to encode structures into flashcards (clozes etc are too simplistic)... furthermore, language learning is complicated by the need to acquire a "feeling" for the context of how certain words are used. It's a kind of tacit knowledge that sometimes defies simple flashcard-type encodings. You can encode context through narrative, but then your flashcards become too unwieldy. I've found writing and speaking (with feedback) in small chunks over a long period of time to be much better at creating the "neurocircuitry" necessary for retention. Again, I wouldn't say flashcard SRS are bad at improving retention (I use them), but like taking notes, even if they don't get you all the way there, they get you somewhere.

abhayb 6y ago

Hello, yes, recent member of the HN note-taking crowd here. Throwaway meeting notes are exactly my use case. It helps that I do most of my thinking on paper anyway so I have a pen and pad handy at all times. For me it's all about focus. Writing is an activity that I enjoy doing independent of what I'm actually writing. Can't zone out if I'm taking notes which leaves me in a position to drop all of the many great insights I always have in every single meeting.

gregmac 6y ago

> Meetings are a great candidate for handwriting notes -- and then discarding. You and I know that most meeting notes are throwaways. I hate handwriting meeting notes! The only way they become useful is if they're saved and searchable (to refer back to weeks or months later), and since they're only sometimes useful, taking the extra time to transcribe is annoying. I can also type faster than I can (legibly) handwrite. So it makes more sense for me to skip the extra step. Aside, I actually find the metadata (who, when, and broad topics) is what I'm usually looking for. Anything immediate gets on my to-do list, or becomes a ticket, or is part of a bigger project I'm actively working on anyway. About the only thing I hand write anymore is actually my to-do list. I've tried dozens of apps and other methods, but always give up after a while. I use a 4x6 sticky note pad, and the killer feature is it gets full every couple days. This forces me to tear it off and start over, re-writing anything still active. After doing this with the same items for long enough, I either have to do them or admit they're not important anymore (or important enough) and drop them. Physically crossing stuff off and throwing away the old sticky notes is kind of cathartic.

wenc 6y ago
I hear you. The practicability of handwriting meeting notes does depend on a few assumptions being true, i.e. improved retention of the meeting would obviate the need to retrieve notes in the first place (not always true, but in my case, often true), and that if you needed to retrieve those notes, you could (again, depends). Me personally, I never transcribe my handwritten notes -- that would be too much work. But I do keep them in an unorganized pile (they're just loose sheets). If I ever needed to retrieve a note, I'll rifle through the pile and I can usually find what I need in 1-2 minutes (I don't attend THAT many meetings). It's not the most organized approach, but it's lightweight and it works for me. Paper isn't exactly unsearchable, merely less searchable than digital. (After all human civilization did exist before computers :) But typing up meeting notes in software works fine and has its advantages, especially if there's a need to share them or to follow-up on them.

sammorrowdrums 6y ago

I'm hoping my ReMarkable 2 pre-order will help me to do potentially both, although imperfect I think the physical act of note taking by hand seems like something I should do more of.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ende 6y ago

Enjoyed and agree with your comment. One useful hybrid approach is to view typed note taking as rapid capture of a rough draft, which if disciplined should lead to selective re-drafting of sections that require more thorough commitment to memory.

Terretta 6y ago

Used to fill a large size moleskin a month by hand, and for this sample size of one, the aid to recall from deciding what to write and processing it back out is remarkable. So, of course, I’ve tried the Remarkable pad, as well as apps like Goodnotes on iPad that try to support handwriting while also supporting search. Goodnotes suited my needs better, as the Remarkable pad latency was too high, though I did prefer the feel of writing. Apple materials research needs to get their glass and pencil closer to this. However, for recall, I find there’s something about the physicality of a paper notebook that gives the facts a place to live. With real x, y, and z dimensions in space, perhaps paper notebooks offer a fine grained version of the “memory palace” method of storing facts for in-memory browsing and recall. Digital notebooks as well as digital books on Kindle lack the physical depth of the relevant page. It seems likely a visual “depth” indicator would assist recall of information in e-books. Unclear how that would work in digital notepads unless they had a fixed quantity of “pages”. Aside from this loss of physical memory mapping, iOS 14’s handwriting to text is compelling. One gets to write notes out by hand, exercising that pathway, but what ends up on the page is real text. Haven’t played with this long enough to have any opinion on whether this transformation defeats recall.

criddell 6y ago
I have an iPad + Pencil and a Remarkable 2 is on the way. The iPad writing experience can be greatly improved with a matte screen protector that has a paper-like finish.
emit_time 6y ago
Can’t you get a screen protector that makes it feel more like paper?
- larrywright 6y ago
  Yes, Moshi makes one that I have and like. It has the added benefit of adding some anti-glare to the iPad. The one I’ve heard the most praise for is called Paperlike: https://paperlike.com/ https://paperlike.com/
Jaxan 6y ago

vira28 6y ago

Have been doing that pretty much. I use Typora for typed notes and Goodnotes/Notability for handwritten. Sometimes I even take screenshots of handwritten and attach them in Typora. One can ask why multiple apps? I really like Typora for its simplicity. Found Notabilty and Goodnotes macOS app really terrible :( Would love to hear thoughts of other folks.

higerordermap 6y ago

Is there some OCR software that can scan written notes and convert to searchable, digital text?

Jaxan 6y ago
I use OneNote on Windows. It is able to search through my handwritten notes, even without converting it (visually) to text. So yes. Edit: of course I write too sloppy for this to always work...
- nunodonato 6y ago
  How are you taking the notes in the first place? Scan? Surface tablet?
  - Jaxan 6y ago
    Directly on the tablet