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Using Paper for Everyday Tasks
- Humikoto 5y agoI feel bad but that page feels super cringy. And its surprisingly hard to just ignore it. why?! :|
- jonnycomputer 5y agoI like the aesthetics. But I use Emacs and org-mode, and don't mind using plain text for everything.
- Zababa 5y ago> And its surprisingly hard to just ignore it. why?! :| That sounds like a you problem. It doesn't really affect my reading. Sure it's more creative than the usual corporate blog style but I don't mind.
- leipert 5y agoThis is a good writeup. I tried paper, maybe I should try it again. I think one benefit of this journaling is that you could easily do a personal retro weekly or so and update a digital brag file. As a manager I loved when reports have a brag file, as this helps immensely during a performance review cycle.
- inferense 5y agoI’ve turned to using text editor and then paper too, mainly for its simplicity. “Running out of battery” was never a problem for me, but maintenance and getting used to the complex UI of today’s task / knowledge management systems definitely was a painful experience. Like many others, I have decided to create something new. A tool which would be simple to use just like a text editor / paper but functional like a full fledged app. It’s a hard problem. Though I feel like new approaches are needed, especially because the way the alternative tools are designed today seems a bit obsolete. The 21st century deserves something better.. happy to share the access https://acreom.com/ https://acreom.com/ and receive some feedback.
- Stratoscope 5y agoIs there a high contrast light theme, like pen on paper? I can’t use dark themes.
- noisy_boy 5y ago> If the item either can't or won't be done, cross out the - to make it into a *. How about put a circle around the - to make it a "stop" sign?
- marban 5y agoI only use paper to capture the 3-5 most important things du jour. All the other notes go into Bear.app — Tried all-paper a gazillion times but if you work a lot with links, visual inspirations, code snippets, etc. it just doesn't make sense — no matter how much I love sharpening that Blackwing pencil.
- gorgoiler 5y agoWhat a lovely piece of writing. It’s good advice. Index / record cards and a binder clip work wonders for me. I used to write in a notebook but the anxiety of losing it is real, especially when reaching the end of a notebook filled with precious knowledge. 80% of read-usage was for either the current day or the previous day. Deeper history is very useful but often done at my desk. You can keep a rolling N day history with a binder clip. Having pieces of card is very useful too. Rip em up, fold em, flick em when you need to give an impromptu demonstration of how TCP works*. Get a Fujitsu ScanSnap too: digitising index cards is much easier than digitising bound notebooks, and it now means you can access your note taking history from any device — essential for all the notes that didn’t get converted into project manager tasks but which need to be referenced, retrospectively. Paper only works for private task tracking so it won’t work for everything but it’s the best tool for the top of the getting-things-done funnel. *I am a high school CS teacher, former FAANGSWE.
- kstrauser 5y agoI second the ScanSnap. I have mine scan directly into DEVONthink, and have been in the “scan and shred” camp for a long time now. If paper comes into my hands I think I may possible want keep, I scan it in. Then, everything that I don’t specifically need to keep original copies of gets shredded. It's the only way to fly.
- beebeepka 5y agoI love the idea of wasting trees because you just prefer to write things down on paper. Been in the workforce for decades and I've met more than a handful of people who love writing things down and, of course, drawing stuff. I've had a guy justify not taking notes because he didn't have a pen and paper on hand...WHILE having an online meeting. On a computer. Now, these people don't have much in common but they tend to advertise this behaviour as benefitial to me and we always end up resenting each other. In my experience, the same people often fill the white boards with incomprehensible junk. Again, for my benefit... Edit:downvotes are not surprising. Waste is good, people. Waste is good. Anyway, didn't have much sleep last night, so I am a bit cranky
- dijit 5y agoYou seem to have strong negative feelings about this. But I very much struggle to take reasonable notes on a computer. Something feels “limiting” in a way, even if I’m consciously aware that you can reasonably do everything on a laptop that I would use paper for, and there are benefits like search-ability. For writing notes I feel flexibility and freedom to redirect my future attention to different parts of the text or accentuate different sections with emphasis or tag a task to be done (with a diamond, in my case). It’s also the case that if I need to break out into a logical diagram I can easily do so. There’s something to be said for how it’s viewed by others too… writing notes looks focused. Tapping into a laptop looks distracted.
- jonnycomputer 5y agoIt is limiting. Doing a diagram on a computer is tedious, and even math notation is slow.
- dlsa 5y agoDepends. If you throw the paper away then sure, it's waste. But... if you keep it then suddenly you're doing carbon capture. Saving the environment one bad meeting at a time. Or riveting collections of todo-done. But yeah the idiots who use the "I don't have paper therefore can't take notes." They're the worst.
- nunodonato 5y agoHow about a middle ground? I've been looking into the new generation of eink devices that are great for notetaking. Remarkable etc Best of both worlds and no more dead trees
- krono 5y agoSame here. The main benefits to me would be the ability to search and extract notes more easily. Currently using a pen and paper system that's not dissimilar to bullet-journaling, but adapted to play nicer with unescapable digital calendars etc.
- jiofih 5y agoI have one. You still can’t quickly flick back onto last week’s notes, and object permanence issues remain. Will never be the same as paper. A better middle ground is probably one of those smart pens that automatically digitizes your scribbles, while you’re still using a paper notebook.
- vbsteven 5y agoWhile I love my Remarkable 2 for taking notes, journaling, drawing and sharing/exporting the results, it lacks search/discoverability/navigation. In a physical notebook it’s trivial to flip back a few pages to recall a note from last week. On remarkable that takes a lot more time, and the time cost is paid twice, once for finding the old note, and a second time to get back to the page I was writing. (Imagine working in a single browser window fullscreen without tabs). I’m still looking for an optimal flow. And I’m gravitating towards something that can ingest remarkable pages, perform OCR and categorise/index the results.
- nunodonato 5y agoOnyx boox allows split screen
- lovecg 5y agoOnyx Boox is a GPL offender though with some other sketchy call-home activity going on. This is a dealbreaker for me. https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
- arichard123 5y agoI use 8 pieces of A4 folded in half and stapled. You need a long-necked stapler, (or cotton and thread I suppose) and you're done. It always lies flat. A4 is super cheap. You can print covers or different types of page if you're interested in that kind of thing.
- xena 5y agoAuthor of the post here, I looked into that but my handwriting is so bad that I needed to have lines on the paper. It was cheaper to use crappy premade notebooks from Amazon.
- arichard123 5y agoYeah, my note books can look quite messy. I enjoyed your post.
- weitzj 5y agoI have used paper but finally with my Remarkable 2 I can keep my paper workflow/feel and don’t waste paper .
- cpach 5y agoThe Remarkable looks very useful. But of course the Remarkable has an ecological footprint too, just like paper has. A non-zero amount of energy and resources went into manufacturing the device. Extracting and shipping metals/oil/silicone, refining those materials, then constructing the display/CPU/motherboard/other components, then shipping all the components to the assembly site, then shipping the device to the store/warehouse, etc. It’s a lot more complicated than making paper. Then multiple times per week the device has to be charged, using electricity that might come from a coal power plant in worst case. I’m not saying one shouldn’t buy a Remarkable. But I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Remarkable is less wasteful than paper before doing a life cycle assessment.
- ekianjo 5y agoIt's not like making paper is energy free. You need to grow the trees, cut the trees using machinery, transport cut trees to factory which is under all likelihood not anywhere close, turn tree pulp into paper, package it, ship it to warehouses before it's actually shipped to the end store to be eventually picked up by a consumer. Not sure what your point actually is, if you want to compare both supply chains then you need to take everything in account, including the amount of paper you'd need over your lifetime in case you did not use any electronic device, the amount of garbage it produces, etc...
- cpach 5y agoExactly. Hence the comment about the life cycle assessment.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoIf we use retail price as a proxy for resource use, how many pages of medium quality notebook could you buy for the price of a Remarkable table.
- omgtehlion 5y agoI like using paper for notes, TODOs, drafts, doodling, etc. Especially I like that tactile feeling when I roll a (mechanical) pencil in my fingers. As of paper: I prefer notebooks with tear-off pages, and love to crumple and throw them out when completed ))
- barrenko 5y agoThe only thing that's important is getting thoughts out of your head.
- streamofdigits 5y agoAs I see it we live through a period where two incredible capabilities remain unreconciled. The free format ability of paper to capture nuance, creativity and complexity in recording information versus the powerful augmentation of search / modify / repurpose existing records that you get with digital tools. Not sure there will ever be something that can support both but it does not sound forbidden by some law of nature
- eloisant 5y agoThe note taking device like Remarkable or Supernote are getting pretty close.
- streamofdigits 5y agoover the years I've been so dissapointed with pens[0] at some point I've given up. but maybe I will muster the will to try again :-) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Concerto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Concerto
- edmundsauto 5y agoThe Remarkable2 tablet uses a pen with disposable nibs, which means you get good writing feedback. In addition, they optimized the e-ink display for writing by minimizing the distance between the display layer and the pen (ie, less gap between the tip and where you see the writing). The device also has generally minimal lag. If an iPad is 60% of the writing experience, the RM2 is 80+%.
- cameronh90 5y agoThe iPad + Pencil + Notability is the perfect device for me. All I really use it for is note taking, and it has completely replaced pen and paper in my life. I can search, organise and back up my notes, and also share screen / convert them to PDF and send them to colleagues easily. I can also easily rearrange the page and convert my scribbles to text so other people can understand them. It was expensive compared to a notebook, but well worth it.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y agoLately I've been writing a lot in paper notepads and I've favored pens over pencils. I don't remember where I heard this idea originally, but there's something about using a pen which makes you grow a bit more comfortable with accepting that errors and mistakes will always happen but you can take action later on to correct those mistakes. With a pencil you often erase your mistakes and pretend they never happened. You're a flawed human, not a flawless writing machine. Expecting perfection from yourself at all times is very limiting. It's better to fill up a notebook with a mix of good ideas and mistakes than to leave it blank.
- johan_felisaz 5y agoDepends on what you do. I've been glad to use pencil in the past, since it is water resistant compared to pen. Useful when you spill coffee on your notebook, or leave your hiking journal in the rain like me ...
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoOr just change pens. You can find permanant markers in a fine tip, artist pens are sometimes waterproof once dry, and different pens are more/less waterproof - though it has been a while since I tested standard pens, and a ball point (or mechanical pencil) is much cheaper than the waterproof options. I'd think that the bigger problem when leaving a journal in the rain is trying to keep the pages from sticking together as it dries. Probably a lesser problem with the coffee unless you have a major spill.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y agoFair point! All tools have their uses, go with whatever works best for your situation. I reach for a light mechanical pencil when I need to sketch a diagram or visualization since I tend to be terrible at estimating how much space will be taken up. The article recommended Field Notes are water-proof as well, if weather conditions are a concern.
- xena 5y agoAuthor of the post here, I use pencil because it's easier for me. Pens work fine (and I've used pens some days) but I mostly use pencil because I prefer pencil. I have a mechanical pencil that I've been getting a lot of mileage out of.
- edgeform 5y agoI keep trying this. I have a coffee cup full of pens, a stack of 3x5 cards, and Post-It notes not 6" from my mouse hand. I just hardly reach for them.
- sunstone 5y agoApparently Richard Branson uses a very similar method.
- tapan_jk 5y agoGood read! My system is similar: - Yellow (legal) pad for daily todo. Use pen on this pad because it is ok to not keep it neat because the page will be thrown away next morning. So, next morning, tear off the top leaf of yesterday, start no a fresh sheet with the date on top, and transfer any todos that need to be carried forward. Typically, a todo is either done, or not needed, or still pending. The pending ones make it to the fresh page. - A notebook for note taking. E.g. meetings, or plans etc. I use a mechanical pencil and an eraser with this one. Mistakes and badly written words can be erased and rewritten. When I reference this notebook, it is good to see that things are legible even after a few days. Summary: - Legal pad and a pen for tasks. Start a new leaf every morning. - Notebook, pencil, eraser for notes. Keep it neat, and can be referenced later.
- raju 5y agoBrilliant post! This system reminds me of Bullet Journaling (https://bulletjournal.com/ https://bulletjournal.com/), which I have used on and off for a long time now. Folks who have adopted Bullet Journaling have come up with some very interesting symbols to capture parts of the day (some which I have found more useful than others). I do find that any paper-based system breaks down for things that are recurring, and I have to resign and use some calendaring system to accommodate those (think changing the air-filter on the HVAC). I also feel that longer-than-a-day projects are harder to track on paper (If anyone has suggestions here I am all ears). I often find myself thinking of a project, breaking it down, then using paper to take one or two everyday till I feel like I am done. My approach to finding balance between paper and electronic is - Use paper daily (for the same reason that the OP suggest). Object permanence is real. I can't tell you how many times I just _remember_ writing something down on the left-hand side near the top that has saved my life. - If a recurring reminder comes through, add it to the list of Todos for today (on paper) - At the end of the day I usually end up transcribing my day into markdown notes (using https://bear.app/ https://bear.app/) Over time I have learned that not everything works well in one format (I have been thinking about getting the Remarkable but my god that's steep)—What I end up doing is "linking" from one medium to another. For example, if I start by writing an entry or a note on paper that I feel will be better described in a diagram or a code snippet I simply put a note on paper telling me to go to Bear (Since all notes are dated this is relatively easy). Or vice-versa—if I doodled out a diagram on paper, I simply put a "See notebook" in my Bear notes. Looking forward to seeing how others are doing this.
- beckingz 5y agoLong term tasks and reminders need to be extracted from the scrawl/sprawl of day to day notes! Your process of transcribing notes into markdown is good. I prefer to think of it as extracting and summarizing, but full transcription can work well.
- ecspike 5y agoI'm pretty similar except for the digital portion software. My final work notes live as an org-roam database because it has really rich linking, export and embed options. Day to day is in paper and the pertinent stuff is "elevated" to digital. Diagrams get inserted as an image as-is and can be tagged with pertinent info. I do have the benefit of having decent handwriting that most can read as is or be OCR'd.
- esalman 5y agoI kinda use Google docs in same manner. I have separate documents for different professional projects and personal goals. I use them in append mode only, and simple colors to differentiate to-do and done items- red/black.
- NaN1352 5y agoI would love to. The most cumbersome thing about notebooks, even larger ones like A3, is 1) they dont lie flat, and 2) even if (eg. rings) when I want to write on the left page, my hand hits the "spine" between the pages and its not comfortable writing. When I used paper I got used to have a stack of A4, put a title in one corner, I?d keep them on my left beside the keyboard. There are nice a4 in 4 light pastel colors, easier on the eyes than white, and simple memory cue when looking in the pile. I’d have cheatsheets and tasks, the task/feature pages with lots of check boxes. I’d keep some cheatsheets for a long time, like css/typescript, and the task ones i would throw away when that feature is done.
- novosel 5y agoJust stating the obvious. All people writing with a fountain pen know that writing in notebooks of any sort is more pleasant when said notebook is rotated 90 degrees, with its spine going across. From left to right. Then, the angle of the paper to the tip point does not vary across the line.
- powersnail 5y agoI like memo pads, something like this: https://www.jetpens.com/Tomoe-River-52-gsm-Paper-Pad-A4-Blank-Cream-100-Sheets/pd/23141 https://www.jetpens.com/Tomoe-River-52-gsm-Paper-Pad-A4-Blan....
- ectopod 5y agoI use the right hand pages only. When I get to the back I flip the book over and, starting from the back, continue using the right hand pages that were formerly on the left.
- asyrafql 5y agoPaper is still the best :p
- sdevonoes 5y agoAm I the only one that does write down stuff in paper to realize that I never come back to it at a later point? In fact I just throw away all my notes after a few weeks. The only reason I write down stuff is because: it "liberates" my mind. I can't keep all the details in my brain. Example: designing a system. I can see the system in my mind but at some point I need to dump it to paper, so I can keep thinking about it. The paper, with the design, is discarded later on... the next time I need to continue working on that system, I start from scratch (although it's way easier than the first time). At some point I have the whole thing so memorized that I can start working on it without having to check the notes. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but "it works". Also, my notes look terrible bad. I don't even care about my handwriting at that point; I only care about "move stuff from brain to paper".
- dreamer7 5y agoYa this makes sense. It's like setting up a chess board to study a position vs trying to do it all in your head.
- reportgunner 5y agoI am the same. I need to write things down by hand to remember them. Once it is written down i don't need the paper any more.
- coffeefirst 5y agoTotally. This is the main insight from the bullet journal people that the author seems to have reached in her own way. None of this stuff needs to live forever, it's just about managing short term memory and cognitive load.
- icey 5y agoI use a similar system to the article, just a bunch of checkboxes and stars in my notes. At the end of every day, I review and make sure everything is up to date. A couple of times a week I'll do a deeper review and either do the thing or formalize the work in an issue somewhere. My handwriting is an abomination, but this system has always worked pretty well for me.
- 5y ago
- krab 5y ago> Paper doesn't vanish into the shadow realm when I close the window. No, but it can vanish when you open the window. :-)
- sneak 5y agoIMHO, making records (flammable ones that exist in only one place and don't automatically back up and replicate) by smudging dark schmutz on to dead tree pulp is barbaric. It's barbaric even when done with a printer. It's extra barbaric doing the smudging with your low resolution meat claw. I carry a portable battery powered bluetooth thermal printer with me in my handbag. The only thing I will handwrite is my signature.
- jodrellblank 5y agoNothing about shorthand. Not that this blog post specifically should have, but it seems conspicuously absent in all blog posts about paper, handwriting, note taking, etc. It's an established idea and demonstrably allows people to take dictation and court reporting at much faster speeds than handwriting - print or cursive. Why is it such a non-thing, even in productivity/efficiency circles and alternate/quirky circles, why aren't we taught it early on in school where we're expected to go the next decade taking handwritten notes during lectures?
- xena 5y agoAuthor here, I've been looking at using Shavian or the like in the future, but most of what I need can be done in information dense notes like (copying from yesterday's list): -> debug xesite on xbox -> cert for xesite - gplay + MS + w10 testing 1.10 · cannot reproduce supposed issue with exit nodes, network issues? Etc. I've just not put time into something like shorthand yet. I may do it in the future (energy permitting) but it just hasn't come up yet.
- xena 5y agoFord improved shorthand looks neat. I'm gonna take a closer look at it. Thanks for the tip!
- planet-and-halo 5y agoI read a tiny bit about shorthand and invented my own using some of the principles other systems were designed on during a long weekend. Great investment, lots of fun. I specifically designed notation that could be common across digital and handwritten, and that paid off big.
- jodrellblank 5y agoHave you written anything about that (in longhand!) - what was in the design for digital/handwriting crossover?
- kstrauser 5y agoI keep thinking I’ll like paper, but I just don’t. A few years ago I started keeping a daily journal: not so much a diary with today I feel… but a record like changed the van’s oil. Drove the kid to camp. Called Mom.. [0] I was using Drafts on my iPhone as a kind of bullet journal, with an action group I wrote. [1] After a year of this, articles like this one convinced me to switch to a paper journal and to get a nice fountain pen. [2] I've done this for about a year and a half now, and when I fill up this current notebook next month, that's it. I'm going back to digital. Turns out, pen and paper is vastly inferior to digital in every way I care about. Other people love it and that's awesome, but I can't escape the fact that I hate handwriting stuff, and I often cut my thoughts short so I can quit scribbling. Worse, the analog notes aren't actionable. My Drafts workflow turns my day's worth of bullet-style entries into a set of digital diary entries, new calendar events, and tasks in my task manager. I'm already carrying my iPhone with me everywhere [3], so I don't have to remember to drag something else along. If I'm jogging and think of something, I can say "hey Siri, remind me to..." and it makes a note for me without me having to pause and jot it down. Paper seems nice for impromptu drawings, but since keeping a paper journal, I've literally never drawn something in it. For me, for my workflow, digital is vastly superior. Paper has its strengths, but none of them apply to how I want to use it. I mention all this for the benefit of other people reading this article and feeling vaguely guilty for not toting a paper notebook with them all the time. I think the important part is the note taking itself, not the medium they're recorded with. [0] As an aside, this is enough for me to remember that day when I look back at it later. It’d be useless for anyone else reading it, but I write for me, not for a hypothetical person who gives a care about what I was doing in 2021. [1] It got kinda popular: https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Sd https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Sd [2] Rhodia Webnotebook A5. Lamy Safari, Noodler’s Baystate Blue ink. [3] None of this applies while on camping trips. I take a paper notebook with me to write stuff down because I don't have to charge it.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoThe only advantage of paper notebooks I've seen so far is that in certain specific corporate settings, you'll be seen as more professional/serious/"executive". Otherwise, for me, if you want to do art, then sure, paper like any medium is a valid matter of stylistic choice. And I fully understand the tactile and visual pleasure of choosing and touching and interacting with a finely crafted physical product. But if you want to do practical / functional, digital beats paper the way paper beat clay tablets. Just the sheer convenience of having all of my notes and tasks, EVER, organized effortlessly, on any device I happen to be near, is a pure slam dunk. Shareability, automation, reminders, analysis, updates, backups... list goes on. (I'll still be more excited to receive a nice paper letter than a quick text, of course :)
- egypturnash 5y agoI think that ultimately any paper task tracking method that cannot be summarized within one or two pages of text is turning into that thing you do to procrastinate on actually doing shit, instead of a useful tool to help you decide what you want to do. Once you pass the preamble of "other ways I used to track tasks and why they don't work for me", this method passes that test. :) Her method looks a lot like the old Bullet Journal method from before it turned into a major part of its creator's business affairs and became the sprawling ecosystem of rules and templates and books and discounts on paper/pens and Instgram influencers sharing the layouts they spent several hours on painting that is "BuJo". Personally I prefer my variant of the Pomodoro Method from before it underwent a similar transformation; breaking one to-do up by the number of half-hour time units I expect it to take works well for me. Whatever works though. A nice notebook and pen work for me, too. Especially since I persuaded a few who had been bemoaning the excessive sizes of their fountain pen collections to send me some very nice perfectly-functional-but-unloved pens.
- ecspike 5y agoI started using a bullet journal some years back and quickly dropped all the rules and artistic spreads for regular notebooks and most recently a pre-printed planner from Japan. Just went to the Bullet Journal site, wow, there's an app now? There is so much going on there. It's too much. I'm also team fountain pen.
- rbonvall 5y agoI've been using mostly paper for my notes for more than 15 years. Of course I have a system that works for me, and it has evolved effortlessly over that time through practice. If I had to explain it to you it may sound convoluted, but it's not like I sat down one day and tried to design a complex system from scratch.
- cortesoft 5y agoSounds nice, but I can barely read my own handwriting and my hand starts to hurt after writing like one word.
- mikub 5y agoI have the same problem, I tried so many ways of holding a pen, but nothing works. Like you said, it starts already after writing one sentence or something like that. Made my schooltime really complicated.
- egypturnash 5y agoHow tightly do you hold your pen? That’s a lot of people’s cause of hand strain. It should be held as lightly as possible. Ideally someone should be able to lean over your shoulder and pluck your pen/pencil straight out of your hand with next to no resistance.
- icey 5y agoEverything about this is great. Over the past 15 years, I've tried to break my paper notebook addiction numerous times, and have failed every time. It took a year of interacting with people over screen only to realize why paper has worked better for me (and why I'm going back to it after a year of Roam): Writing things on paper forces you to be a better listener, AND when people realize you're writing things down, they tend to speak more concisely. It's not that hard to type at the speed of most conversations, but it never feels like it's really listening. Watch people who do it! They nod, type furiously, and when they have something they want to add they will change their facial expression to signal that they want to finish typing their sentence before they want to interject. Saying "hold on, let me write this down" gives everyone a moment to refocus, and it's a lot more natural to say that than "hold on, let me type this". Plus, it makes it much more natural to revisit topics and let the conversation flow. Roam, Notion, GitHub Issues, etc are all great for asynchronous communication and coordination, but I don't know that any system will ever beat writing things down by hand for talking with people. (Although, the hype around ReMarkable is tough to ignore...)
- throwawayboise 5y agoI like pen and paper for organizing thoughts but find that the expensive notebooks and fancy fountain pens and elaborate formatting "systems" just interfere with the core value of pen and paper notes: there are no rules. I have a stack of discarded printer paper on my desk. Rough drafts I've printed to proofread, that sort of thing. I make notes and doodles on the back side of these pages, using whatever pen or pencil is handy. If I decide they are worth keeping, I can use a three-hole punch and put them in a binder. Mostly they end up getting shredded and recycled. There are cases where using a text editor makes more sense. Working through the installation of a piece of software, for example. Much easier to copy/paste from the terminal (or just use 'script' to record it and edit later) than to transcribe shell commands onto paper.
- kej 5y agoFor me, the Rocketbook line of notebooks gives me the best of both worlds. I write/draw in the notebook, then I can scan the pages with the app, and the images land in my Google Drive (configurable). Then when the notebook is full I wash the pages and it's ready to start over.
- WalterBright 5y agoI keep a pen and a $.79 spiral notebook on my desk. When it fills up, I run it through the scanner and toss it, then buy another one.
- zozbot234 5y agoSomewhat of a random note, but what's up with the WebMention trackbacks at the bottom of OP? I'm not seeing any outright malicious/spam links but there's a lot of redundancy, and unhelpful anchor texts like "Bridgy response" in some links, whilst other links from the same service manage to excerpt the mention correctly.
- xena 5y agoThat's a bug in my web mention scraper! I've been meaning to fix that but I have had bigger things to worry about.
- rnoorda 5y agoI find myself feeling naked whenever I'm too far from a pen and paper. I take most of my structured notes on a computer, but paper is where I think through ideas. I can draw diagrams, do math, and organise thoughts visually more easily on paper than digital. I also hate taking notes or writing much more than a text on my phone, so I enjoy having a notebook or looseleaf paper wherever I am.