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The paper/portability/digitisation conundrum is one I can never break. I agree UX of paper is miles ahead of any app. But it’s not indexable or searchable. So

The paper/portability/digitisation conundrum is one I can never break. I agree UX of paper is miles ahead of any app. But it’s not indexable or searchable. So what? - scan paper notes... still don’t have it searchable. Plus notebooks are not that easy to scan - pay someone to transcribe it: probably not cheap, plus privacy issues - something like remarkable: quite a lot more expensive than pen and paper Anyone have any suggestions on this front?

ColinWright 5y ago
I started to write a reply to this, but realised it was turning into a full blog post in its own right, so I've copied it out for later, and will give a skeleton reply here. Some notes you can take while you're sitting at a machine. You can probably type as fast as you can write, possibly faster, so typed notes can go straight into whatever system[0] you use. Other notes occur when you're walking, or eating, or meditating, or exercising. For those I have two processes. One is simply use the "Notepad" app on my Android phone, hit the microphone, and dictate directly. The other is to write it on paper and mark it as "unfiled". These are unrefined notes. Later I revisit them and convert them into the first type of note, and, as above, insert them into my system, then mark them as "filed" (or just delete them). But how do you insert them into your system? For some people it's just a case of recording them in a searchable repository, and there they leave them until such a time as they perform the right search. However ... In my opinion, the value of a note-taking, note-preserving system is not in simply having lots of notes. For me, the value is in the "conversation" that I have with my repository. That conversation happens whenever I choose to interrogate the system, but it also happens as a part of the process of inserting notes. Inserting notes is an active process. I don't just "write and forget-until-searched". Inserting a note means finding a place to insert it, devising and using hashtags, connecting this note to other notes, creating backlinks, adding annotations to other notes, and generally enriching the whole system. It's working for me. [0] This is entirely another kettle of fish.
stocknoob 5y ago
A moderate expense of a few hundred dollars really shouldn't be an impediment for a good notetaking system that improves your life. Skimping on this is a false economy, like skimping on a good chair or mattress.
dayvid 5y ago
Probably Zettlekasten. If you have easy tear sheets in a notebook, you could make a system out of it. It's very particular, but might work for you: https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/ https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/
powersnail 5y ago
I don't care much about digitizing my notes these days. Instead, I do a weekly review on my notes, and type anything that might benefit from being searched into my computer. The primary reason is that for any notes that I want to put into my digital database, I have to do a lot of editing anyway. My first draft notes are full of short-hands, dangling sentences, struck out words, back-and-forth thoughts; while I need them to be self-contained, clear, more bullet-point-ish, and better organized inside the computer. So I might as well just type a second draft.
fancy_pantser 5y ago
Just in case you haven't seem them yet, the Rocketbook "Smart Notebook" tries to pave a path between taking natural notes with pen and ink and capturing them digitally for various purposes, including searching the OCR'd handwriting.
Lio 5y ago
What about digital paper[1]? Basically paper with a patten on it that can be read by a camera in the pen. The pen can then transmit that to your main computer. It’s not new tech but it is pretty cheap and solves the scanning issue. Moleskine[2] amongst others sell something like that but ther non-premium paper is available too. I think UK social services used to use them at one time. Much cheaper and less likely to be stolen than a tablet. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_paper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_paper 2. https://www.moleskine.com/en-gb/shop/moleskine-smart/smart-writing-system/smart-writing-system/smart-writing-set-black-8056598851571.html https://www.moleskine.com/en-gb/shop/moleskine-smart/smart-w...
diffeomorphism 5y ago
> scan paper notes... still don’t have it searchable. Plus notebooks are not that easy to scan There are notebooks specifically made to be easily scanable, eg. https://www.leuchtturm1917.com/whitelines-link.html https://www.leuchtturm1917.com/whitelines-link.html Another options are binders, so that you can just take out the pages, put them into a feeder and scan all of them. ... or you can rip a notebooks spine and do the same thing, but have a ripped notebook. That said, I tried various tablets, galaxy note devices, scanning ... and mostly use paper still. No worries about battery life, free form, nicer pens and the biggest benefit: a big desk allows you to just have multiple pages next to each other, open previous notes on the side and draw freely on all of them. A tablet/ereader can replace one page, but not multiple at the same time. Sure, search, version control, copy&paste and easy backups would be nice, but not enough of an advantage over paper.

ColinWright 5y ago

I started to write a reply to this, but realised it was turning into a full blog post in its own right, so I've copied it out for later, and will give a skeleton reply here. Some notes you can take while you're sitting at a machine. You can probably type as fast as you can write, possibly faster, so typed notes can go straight into whatever system[0] you use. Other notes occur when you're walking, or eating, or meditating, or exercising. For those I have two processes. One is simply use the "Notepad" app on my Android phone, hit the microphone, and dictate directly. The other is to write it on paper and mark it as "unfiled". These are unrefined notes. Later I revisit them and convert them into the first type of note, and, as above, insert them into my system, then mark them as "filed" (or just delete them). But how do you insert them into your system? For some people it's just a case of recording them in a searchable repository, and there they leave them until such a time as they perform the right search. However ... In my opinion, the value of a note-taking, note-preserving system is not in simply having lots of notes. For me, the value is in the "conversation" that I have with my repository. That conversation happens whenever I choose to interrogate the system, but it also happens as a part of the process of inserting notes. Inserting notes is an active process. I don't just "write and forget-until-searched". Inserting a note means finding a place to insert it, devising and using hashtags, connecting this note to other notes, creating backlinks, adding annotations to other notes, and generally enriching the whole system. It's working for me. [0] This is entirely another kettle of fish.

stocknoob 5y ago

A moderate expense of a few hundred dollars really shouldn't be an impediment for a good notetaking system that improves your life. Skimping on this is a false economy, like skimping on a good chair or mattress.

dayvid 5y ago

Probably Zettlekasten. If you have easy tear sheets in a notebook, you could make a system out of it. It's very particular, but might work for you: https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/ https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/

powersnail 5y ago

I don't care much about digitizing my notes these days. Instead, I do a weekly review on my notes, and type anything that might benefit from being searched into my computer. The primary reason is that for any notes that I want to put into my digital database, I have to do a lot of editing anyway. My first draft notes are full of short-hands, dangling sentences, struck out words, back-and-forth thoughts; while I need them to be self-contained, clear, more bullet-point-ish, and better organized inside the computer. So I might as well just type a second draft.

fancy_pantser 5y ago

Just in case you haven't seem them yet, the Rocketbook "Smart Notebook" tries to pave a path between taking natural notes with pen and ink and capturing them digitally for various purposes, including searching the OCR'd handwriting.

Lio 5y ago

What about digital paper[1]? Basically paper with a patten on it that can be read by a camera in the pen. The pen can then transmit that to your main computer. It’s not new tech but it is pretty cheap and solves the scanning issue. Moleskine[2] amongst others sell something like that but ther non-premium paper is available too. I think UK social services used to use them at one time. Much cheaper and less likely to be stolen than a tablet. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_paper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_paper 2. https://www.moleskine.com/en-gb/shop/moleskine-smart/smart-writing-system/smart-writing-system/smart-writing-set-black-8056598851571.html https://www.moleskine.com/en-gb/shop/moleskine-smart/smart-w...

diffeomorphism 5y ago

> scan paper notes... still don’t have it searchable. Plus notebooks are not that easy to scan There are notebooks specifically made to be easily scanable, eg. https://www.leuchtturm1917.com/whitelines-link.html https://www.leuchtturm1917.com/whitelines-link.html Another options are binders, so that you can just take out the pages, put them into a feeder and scan all of them. ... or you can rip a notebooks spine and do the same thing, but have a ripped notebook. That said, I tried various tablets, galaxy note devices, scanning ... and mostly use paper still. No worries about battery life, free form, nicer pens and the biggest benefit: a big desk allows you to just have multiple pages next to each other, open previous notes on the side and draw freely on all of them. A tablet/ereader can replace one page, but not multiple at the same time. Sure, search, version control, copy&paste and easy backups would be nice, but not enough of an advantage over paper.