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> "They aren’t a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking process." This exactly! I think with pen and notebook. I also think without pen and notebo

> "They aren’t a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking process." This exactly! I think with pen and notebook. I also think without pen and notebook, such as during my driving and running. Without notebooks, I often find myself think in circles and having hard time to recall what I just realized a short moment ago. With pen and notebook, it is more relaxed. Often I don't revisit my notebooks. So the notebooks are mainly serving as a thinking aids than to serve as a database. Replacing them with digital sounds nice, but in reality it is just a distraction. Having the record to go back to is a short term benefit; the few pages of notes that I do end up revisit often quickly become part of paper or presentations, or tweets and moments, or more often, prototype code. I have accumulated a drawer of used notebooks. They only have sentimental values. And they have more sentimental values in paper forms than in digital forms. PS: my current favorite notebook is this one https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Sugarcane-Notebook-College-Sheets/dp/B00M8UCIT6 https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Sugarcane-Notebook-College-... A hard cover and thick ring has become a necessity for me.

weaksauce 4y ago
The notes i took in college were almost never looked at again after I took them... they were more of a method to retain the information. I also found that the classes where I was using a laptop to take notes were the ones that I retained the least from. the notes are the process.
- rowanajmarshall 4y ago
  Exactly. If anything, computer notes distracted me from the lecture. But writing out summaries from slides after the lecture was invaluable, even if I never looked at those summaries again.
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  One of my professors said his retention method when he was a student was to take light, quick notes during lectures, but then at home the same night, write out their contents in complete sentences in a separate notebook. It sounded like a good system for someone (not me) who is organized enough to keep up with it. I looked at the OP article and it seems too fetishistic for my tastes. What happened to ordinary yellow legal pads, or spiral bound school notebooks? For daily casual jottings, I used to use paperbound pocket notebooks, but they kept falling apart with use. Now I just carry a folded up piece of 8.5"x11" printer paper and transcribe any content needing preservation to a computer when I get around to it. The rest is ephemeral and I can throw away the paper when it gets full. Lately I read on Stephen Wolfram's blog that he does the same thing I do. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad one.
  - neilv 4y ago
    Instead of that folded-up piece of paper, if you have a box of business cards you'll never get through, those double as wallet-sized durable scratch paper. :)
    - throwaway81523 4y ago
      Yeah at one point I carried around 3x5" cards but the regular sheet of paper is more convenient than almost anything, and I can unfold it and use the whole area or half of a side, or whatever. Biz cards are too small for more than jotting down occasional phone numbers etc. The current problem I find is I keep losing pens and rarely have one when I need it. I just happened to be looking into keychain and wallet sized pens a couple of days ago: https://www.jetpens.com/Ohto-Minimo-Ballpoint-Pen-with-Holder-0.5-mm-Black/pd/10899 https://www.jetpens.com/Ohto-Minimo-Ballpoint-Pen-with-Holde... Heh.
- rchaud 4y ago
  The way I was taught in college was to: a) take lecture notes in class b) as soon as possible after the class, refine those lecture notes by combining it with references from the textbook and other readings or handouts. c) visit your instructor during office hours to clear up things you weren't able to during (b) Unfortunately the advice didn't come with any time management tips so I was almost never able to follow it. The worst of it was revisiting my unrefined notes 3-4 days after I took them. They often seemed to read like gibberish, especially if I had not been studying the reading material in the meantime.
  - bornabox 4y ago
    Just taking notes by hand seems to improve my memorization & understanding. (business context, not school for me) But going over my notes again in a timely fashion (<24 to 36 hours) seems to improve them a lot (sometimes just an additional explanation, highlighting, drawing a diagram). Structure helps when you need to go back and look for something.
- matwood 4y ago
  In college my process was take written notes in class, then studying consisted of transferring those notes to my computer by typing them in/expanding where needed. Never looked at them after that.
turtleyacht 4y ago
I used Moleskine for several years. Each last a year apiece. Now the Miquelrius softbound: similar size, but 300 sheets for 600 pages. Entries are numbered sequentially. Some are a single sentence, others are a code snippet; still others a paragraph. "Log pages" go between chunks of consecutive pages. After getting full, these are taped at the edge with shipping tape, to flip to them more easily. The log page gets its own number and a luxurious two pages. As entries are added, I flip back to the nearest log page and add <number> plus a single title sentence. I rarely title entries themselves. As pages start to separate from the binding, duct tape keeps them stuck to the cover. There's so many pages; you can try all kinds of customization. I've been trying to combine Zettelkasten with GTD, but just going crazy with "how to start" versus "just do the thing." Sharpies bleed through. Pages are graph style as blue squares, but I'm used to it. My fidget tool is flipping through with my thumb--but only the older pages. Keep the new pages pristine, because skin oil will mess with the ink! I aim to use a wax sheet, like what stickers use, on the proceeding page where my hand would rest, to mitigate the issue. In all, I've reached the limit of notebooks, and from here it's automating awk or something, and really making a computer archive of this stuff. I always promise myself to keep a good index, but I never go back to the notes. Maybe occasional entries, which will be rewritten into a new notebook--but I'm glad to have written something for my future, sentimental self. A slip box is still possible--but instead of references to other works, they are your longer-form notes in the notebook. Then it's third-order storage, in a sense. A compromise to needing more space than an index card, but the desire for discoverable brevity.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I was hoping to find in this thread the system other people use in their notebooks. However I don't understand, can you explain what the log page does?
barrenko 4y ago
Yup. In the context of thinking as a sort of "digestion" - I can think only when writing or walking / running. I can hardly do any thinking just thinking.

weaksauce 4y ago

The notes i took in college were almost never looked at again after I took them... they were more of a method to retain the information. I also found that the classes where I was using a laptop to take notes were the ones that I retained the least from. the notes are the process.

rowanajmarshall 4y ago
Exactly. If anything, computer notes distracted me from the lecture. But writing out summaries from slides after the lecture was invaluable, even if I never looked at those summaries again.
throwaway81523 4y ago
One of my professors said his retention method when he was a student was to take light, quick notes during lectures, but then at home the same night, write out their contents in complete sentences in a separate notebook. It sounded like a good system for someone (not me) who is organized enough to keep up with it. I looked at the OP article and it seems too fetishistic for my tastes. What happened to ordinary yellow legal pads, or spiral bound school notebooks? For daily casual jottings, I used to use paperbound pocket notebooks, but they kept falling apart with use. Now I just carry a folded up piece of 8.5"x11" printer paper and transcribe any content needing preservation to a computer when I get around to it. The rest is ephemeral and I can throw away the paper when it gets full. Lately I read on Stephen Wolfram's blog that he does the same thing I do. I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad one.
- neilv 4y ago
  Instead of that folded-up piece of paper, if you have a box of business cards you'll never get through, those double as wallet-sized durable scratch paper. :)
  - throwaway81523 4y ago
    Yeah at one point I carried around 3x5" cards but the regular sheet of paper is more convenient than almost anything, and I can unfold it and use the whole area or half of a side, or whatever. Biz cards are too small for more than jotting down occasional phone numbers etc. The current problem I find is I keep losing pens and rarely have one when I need it. I just happened to be looking into keychain and wallet sized pens a couple of days ago: https://www.jetpens.com/Ohto-Minimo-Ballpoint-Pen-with-Holder-0.5-mm-Black/pd/10899 https://www.jetpens.com/Ohto-Minimo-Ballpoint-Pen-with-Holde... Heh.
rchaud 4y ago
The way I was taught in college was to: a) take lecture notes in class b) as soon as possible after the class, refine those lecture notes by combining it with references from the textbook and other readings or handouts. c) visit your instructor during office hours to clear up things you weren't able to during (b) Unfortunately the advice didn't come with any time management tips so I was almost never able to follow it. The worst of it was revisiting my unrefined notes 3-4 days after I took them. They often seemed to read like gibberish, especially if I had not been studying the reading material in the meantime.
- bornabox 4y ago
  Just taking notes by hand seems to improve my memorization & understanding. (business context, not school for me) But going over my notes again in a timely fashion (<24 to 36 hours) seems to improve them a lot (sometimes just an additional explanation, highlighting, drawing a diagram). Structure helps when you need to go back and look for something.
matwood 4y ago
In college my process was take written notes in class, then studying consisted of transferring those notes to my computer by typing them in/expanding where needed. Never looked at them after that.

turtleyacht 4y ago

I used Moleskine for several years. Each last a year apiece. Now the Miquelrius softbound: similar size, but 300 sheets for 600 pages. Entries are numbered sequentially. Some are a single sentence, others are a code snippet; still others a paragraph. "Log pages" go between chunks of consecutive pages. After getting full, these are taped at the edge with shipping tape, to flip to them more easily. The log page gets its own number and a luxurious two pages. As entries are added, I flip back to the nearest log page and add <number> plus a single title sentence. I rarely title entries themselves. As pages start to separate from the binding, duct tape keeps them stuck to the cover. There's so many pages; you can try all kinds of customization. I've been trying to combine Zettelkasten with GTD, but just going crazy with "how to start" versus "just do the thing." Sharpies bleed through. Pages are graph style as blue squares, but I'm used to it. My fidget tool is flipping through with my thumb--but only the older pages. Keep the new pages pristine, because skin oil will mess with the ink! I aim to use a wax sheet, like what stickers use, on the proceeding page where my hand would rest, to mitigate the issue. In all, I've reached the limit of notebooks, and from here it's automating awk or something, and really making a computer archive of this stuff. I always promise myself to keep a good index, but I never go back to the notes. Maybe occasional entries, which will be rewritten into a new notebook--but I'm glad to have written something for my future, sentimental self. A slip box is still possible--but instead of references to other works, they are your longer-form notes in the notebook. Then it's third-order storage, in a sense. A compromise to needing more space than an index card, but the desire for discoverable brevity.

triyambakam 4y ago
Thanks for sharing! I was hoping to find in this thread the system other people use in their notebooks. However I don't understand, can you explain what the log page does?

barrenko 4y ago

Yup. In the context of thinking as a sort of "digestion" - I can think only when writing or walking / running. I can hardly do any thinking just thinking.