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Time for the daily/weekly/monthly note taking and productivity thread! On a serious note, I actually like these threads. Earlier in the year I decided to look

Time for the daily/weekly/monthly note taking and productivity thread! On a serious note, I actually like these threads. Earlier in the year I decided to look into better note taking and task management, and it became an entire month of me gradually becoming more and more stressed about it. HN was actually a great source for this, mostly because a lot of the people on here seem a bit less "into it" than dedicated sources, and help bring me back down to earth. In the end, my solution was simple. Stop trying. Of course, because I get a bit obsessive over this kind of thing (who could have guessed that a man who spent an entire month thinking about note taking can be obsessive), I couldn't just stop. So instead, I set myself a reminder to come back to it in a month, knowing full well that by then I'll be obsessed with the next thing and will keep putting it off. I write this in case anyone else is going through the same dilemma. Just take a break, get a notebook where you can jot down ideas for how you will jot down ideas, set a reminder, and move on with your life. Unless your enjoy this sort of thing, in which case, have fun :)

lkois 5y ago
I've found the perfect notebooks for me are A5 spiral bound dot grids. Fairly compact size, unintrusive binding. The dot grid forces less structure than lined, but isn't the wild west of blank. A few months ago I also looked into a bunch of note taking methods, even bought a similar A5, spiral bound, pre-formatted organizer and thought it'd be perfect for organizing my days. It remains unused except for a couple of lines where I began to note the days tasks, then crossed them out and tried to start again the next day. But a dot grid purchased around the same time is filling up very quickly with odd chicken scratchings of work notes. The only hint of structure are dates scrawled wherever I happened to be starting from that day. Any very important things get circled or marked with an asterisk
- smarx007 5y ago
  I have since improved on a similar setup by using B5 notebooks with margins (to punch holes) and "filing stripes" [1]. It allows me to take notes of different kinds ("odd chicken scratchings of work notes") just by opening a new clean sheet (at a cost of occasionally wasting a clean page on the reverse side of a previous sheet) and then tear the sheets off and file them neatly (I use the stripes upside down so that an append "operation" is less costly). For long-running projects, I also use A5 notebooks that are pre-partitioned at a given % (I use 60-70%). The idea is that you go over your old notebook with "odd chicken scratchings", count the number of pages spent on each topic, calculate the ratios and multiply them by 70%*NUM_PaGES. Then you allocate this number of pages in the new (clean) notebook and put tab stickers on each section. I also leave around 4 pages for the TOC in the beginning of a notebook. It's just 2 sheets, but the ability to go back and put an extensive TOC later helps a lot when you refer to a finished notebook. With a bit of patience, you can but together a perfectly ordered TOC in a completely messy notebook (by doing one pass over all notes before writing down the TOC and grouping them by project). I also tried keeping notes on paper and writing down the TOC digitally in my Evernote to keep it searchable. Regarding spiral binding, I find it too flimsy. If you damage the spiral, flipping pages would cause damage to the pages. I prefer hardbound notebooks. I use fountain pens and previously used expensive paper but since the pandemic I tried Idena [2] and it simply blew me away with its high quality and ink resistance (except for some rare inks) at such a low cost (but I had to give up the dot grid). Ultimately, I am convinced that all of this has a limit and a Zettelkasten method of sorts is needed for a long-running knowledge base project. [1]: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004F69CRC https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004F69CRC [2]: https://www.amazon.de/Idena-209281-Notizbuch-kariert-schwarz/dp/B00G44WQLW https://www.amazon.de/Idena-209281-Notizbuch-kariert-schwarz...
- gennarro 5y ago
  I recently experimented a bunch a ended up simply using a set of composition notebooks[0]. These are cheap, classic, and they prevent pages being torn out (which I was prematurely doing when I thought I was done with a thread). [0] https://unsharpen.com/composition-notebook/ https://unsharpen.com/composition-notebook/
- Tomte 5y ago
  Currently I'm using blank A7 index cards, with a fold-back clip. A bit like the Hipster PDA. I'm not sure I'll stay with that, but so far it looks good. I like the thick paper, the wide availability and the low price. I can reorder stuff, I can take single index cards out, and I don't regret throwing cards away.
gglitch 5y ago
To forestall premature optimization about notebooks or any form of linearity, I start with looseleaf paper.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  For me it was actually the opposite, I went with a small, bound notebook so I couldnt obsess over how things are arranged and what goes where and what goes in the front and so on. Basically its the most basic, limiting system I could find, short of carving my notes into stone Obviously that rigidity has its flaws but not to worry, I'll deal with that later. Or at least thats what I tell myself ;)
twic 5y ago
Who is the audience for these threads? The only time in my life i've taken substantial quantities of notes was when i was a student. When i've had a job, the learning i do isn't the kind where i'm making copious notes. Are there a lot of students on HN? Are there a lot of people doing out-of-hours study? Do people make lots of notes at work? Is this productivity LARP?
- pionar 5y ago
  ADHD sufferer here, taking notes is ESSENTIAL. I don't have a system though, just a series of OneNote notebooks that I organize when I can get to it.
  - kaliszad 5y ago
    I would be really glad, if you could try out OrgPad.com and give us some feedback. (Disclaimer: I work for OrgPad if that wasn't obvious.) We think, OrgPad has a number of strong advantages above OneNote: - it is generally way simpler and tries to actually help you and not throw sticks under your feet - OrgPad has well thought out animations that make OrgPad feel more natural - OrgPad enables you to think a lot more visually, this has a nice property that if you use OrgPad honestly, it is as if you looked onto your mind in a mirror - it will actually develop further and improve constantly There is of course a lot more. We use OrgPad for everything, from management of the company, software development planing and progress tracking, note taking/ documentation to personal bureaucracy. For more information you can look at The Vision of OrgPad: https://www.orgpad.com/s/VjMKIa7bfnN https://www.orgpad.com/s/VjMKIa7bfnN For pricing information, you can look at: https://orgpad.com/s/pricing https://orgpad.com/s/pricing you can start to use OrgPad for free, for extensive usage, you might want to upgrade to 6 USD/ month or 60 USD/ year once we go live with the pricing which should be at the end of this month. You can also get in touch on our social media: https://www.orgpad.com/o/DGdsoOCsdCzolePMNiS1LM https://www.orgpad.com/o/DGdsoOCsdCzolePMNiS1LM
- bikingbismuth 5y ago
  I had this realization after my second attempt at implementing Zettelkasten. Most of my job is managing people. I take notes and to-dos, but nothing on the scale that ZK facilitates. Even when I do IC work, I rarely take in depth structured notes.
hnrj95 5y ago
org-roam is kind of a port of this type of tooling to the org ecosystem in emacs, and i’ve found it extraordinarily helpful both for design/architecture on the job and for learning things, both rote and otherwise
amimetic 5y ago
This "Dev builds perfect note-taking system which only stores info about building note-taking systems": https://www.theolognion.com/dev-builds-perfect-note-taking-system-which-only-stores-info-about-building-note-taking-systems/ https://www.theolognion.com/dev-builds-perfect-note-taking-s... is well timed
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Also somewhat relevant https://xkcd.com/874/ https://xkcd.com/874/ Edit: Apparently not relevant (I still think it is), or someone spends their day doing just this and isn't happy that its being pointed out. Either way, they're not happy

lkois 5y ago

I've found the perfect notebooks for me are A5 spiral bound dot grids. Fairly compact size, unintrusive binding. The dot grid forces less structure than lined, but isn't the wild west of blank. A few months ago I also looked into a bunch of note taking methods, even bought a similar A5, spiral bound, pre-formatted organizer and thought it'd be perfect for organizing my days. It remains unused except for a couple of lines where I began to note the days tasks, then crossed them out and tried to start again the next day. But a dot grid purchased around the same time is filling up very quickly with odd chicken scratchings of work notes. The only hint of structure are dates scrawled wherever I happened to be starting from that day. Any very important things get circled or marked with an asterisk

smarx007 5y ago
I have since improved on a similar setup by using B5 notebooks with margins (to punch holes) and "filing stripes" [1]. It allows me to take notes of different kinds ("odd chicken scratchings of work notes") just by opening a new clean sheet (at a cost of occasionally wasting a clean page on the reverse side of a previous sheet) and then tear the sheets off and file them neatly (I use the stripes upside down so that an append "operation" is less costly). For long-running projects, I also use A5 notebooks that are pre-partitioned at a given % (I use 60-70%). The idea is that you go over your old notebook with "odd chicken scratchings", count the number of pages spent on each topic, calculate the ratios and multiply them by 70%*NUM_PaGES. Then you allocate this number of pages in the new (clean) notebook and put tab stickers on each section. I also leave around 4 pages for the TOC in the beginning of a notebook. It's just 2 sheets, but the ability to go back and put an extensive TOC later helps a lot when you refer to a finished notebook. With a bit of patience, you can but together a perfectly ordered TOC in a completely messy notebook (by doing one pass over all notes before writing down the TOC and grouping them by project). I also tried keeping notes on paper and writing down the TOC digitally in my Evernote to keep it searchable. Regarding spiral binding, I find it too flimsy. If you damage the spiral, flipping pages would cause damage to the pages. I prefer hardbound notebooks. I use fountain pens and previously used expensive paper but since the pandemic I tried Idena [2] and it simply blew me away with its high quality and ink resistance (except for some rare inks) at such a low cost (but I had to give up the dot grid). Ultimately, I am convinced that all of this has a limit and a Zettelkasten method of sorts is needed for a long-running knowledge base project. [1]: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004F69CRC https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004F69CRC [2]: https://www.amazon.de/Idena-209281-Notizbuch-kariert-schwarz/dp/B00G44WQLW https://www.amazon.de/Idena-209281-Notizbuch-kariert-schwarz...
gennarro 5y ago
I recently experimented a bunch a ended up simply using a set of composition notebooks[0]. These are cheap, classic, and they prevent pages being torn out (which I was prematurely doing when I thought I was done with a thread). [0] https://unsharpen.com/composition-notebook/ https://unsharpen.com/composition-notebook/
Tomte 5y ago
Currently I'm using blank A7 index cards, with a fold-back clip. A bit like the Hipster PDA. I'm not sure I'll stay with that, but so far it looks good. I like the thick paper, the wide availability and the low price. I can reorder stuff, I can take single index cards out, and I don't regret throwing cards away.

gglitch 5y ago

To forestall premature optimization about notebooks or any form of linearity, I start with looseleaf paper.

bodge5000 5y ago
For me it was actually the opposite, I went with a small, bound notebook so I couldnt obsess over how things are arranged and what goes where and what goes in the front and so on. Basically its the most basic, limiting system I could find, short of carving my notes into stone Obviously that rigidity has its flaws but not to worry, I'll deal with that later. Or at least thats what I tell myself ;)

twic 5y ago

Who is the audience for these threads? The only time in my life i've taken substantial quantities of notes was when i was a student. When i've had a job, the learning i do isn't the kind where i'm making copious notes. Are there a lot of students on HN? Are there a lot of people doing out-of-hours study? Do people make lots of notes at work? Is this productivity LARP?

pionar 5y ago
ADHD sufferer here, taking notes is ESSENTIAL. I don't have a system though, just a series of OneNote notebooks that I organize when I can get to it.
- kaliszad 5y ago
  I would be really glad, if you could try out OrgPad.com and give us some feedback. (Disclaimer: I work for OrgPad if that wasn't obvious.) We think, OrgPad has a number of strong advantages above OneNote: - it is generally way simpler and tries to actually help you and not throw sticks under your feet - OrgPad has well thought out animations that make OrgPad feel more natural - OrgPad enables you to think a lot more visually, this has a nice property that if you use OrgPad honestly, it is as if you looked onto your mind in a mirror - it will actually develop further and improve constantly There is of course a lot more. We use OrgPad for everything, from management of the company, software development planing and progress tracking, note taking/ documentation to personal bureaucracy. For more information you can look at The Vision of OrgPad: https://www.orgpad.com/s/VjMKIa7bfnN https://www.orgpad.com/s/VjMKIa7bfnN For pricing information, you can look at: https://orgpad.com/s/pricing https://orgpad.com/s/pricing you can start to use OrgPad for free, for extensive usage, you might want to upgrade to 6 USD/ month or 60 USD/ year once we go live with the pricing which should be at the end of this month. You can also get in touch on our social media: https://www.orgpad.com/o/DGdsoOCsdCzolePMNiS1LM https://www.orgpad.com/o/DGdsoOCsdCzolePMNiS1LM
bikingbismuth 5y ago
I had this realization after my second attempt at implementing Zettelkasten. Most of my job is managing people. I take notes and to-dos, but nothing on the scale that ZK facilitates. Even when I do IC work, I rarely take in depth structured notes.

hnrj95 5y ago

org-roam is kind of a port of this type of tooling to the org ecosystem in emacs, and i’ve found it extraordinarily helpful both for design/architecture on the job and for learning things, both rote and otherwise

amimetic 5y ago

This "Dev builds perfect note-taking system which only stores info about building note-taking systems": https://www.theolognion.com/dev-builds-perfect-note-taking-system-which-only-stores-info-about-building-note-taking-systems/ https://www.theolognion.com/dev-builds-perfect-note-taking-s... is well timed

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bodge5000 5y ago
Also somewhat relevant https://xkcd.com/874/ https://xkcd.com/874/ Edit: Apparently not relevant (I still think it is), or someone spends their day doing just this and isn't happy that its being pointed out. Either way, they're not happy