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Ask HN: Are you using visual note taking (Sketchnoting) techniques?

• nivertech 4y ago
  Not sure what do you mean by "visual note taking". Maybe mind mapping? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map https://www.mindmapping.com/ https://www.mindmapping.com/
  • firstSpeaker 4y ago
    The method mixes mind map and textual notes. Being on paper or digital versions. I updated the ask description with a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchnoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchnoting but another sample can be https://rohdesign.com/sketchnotes https://rohdesign.com/sketchnotes
    • pomatic 4y ago
      The sketchnotes style of note taking seems to have some severe constraints: (a) one has to be artistic [be able to 'draw'] and (b) one has to have the time to finish the sketch. Situationally, I don't think this style would be well suited, for example, to note taking in a dynamic or fast paced environment. On the other hand, it might well be actively helpful in a brainstorming situation. A sort of constructive doodling. Before it declined into flakiness (hardware/software failures?), I was a huge fan of mind mapping as a note taking format on my reMarkable. Inevitability I doodled on the reMarkable whilst thinking about stuff, and maybe that could have been built into the mindmap itself rather than being an idle fancy. If this technique is introduced into a team environment, I think it's set to fail - you want everyone to contribute equally, and to be judged equally, without the fear of being mocked for their lack of skill with a whiteboard marker or smartpen, which was one of my take-aways from Dan Roam's 'Back of a Napkin' book, which is cracking & highly recommended to anyone whose interest is piqued by the sketchnotes idea.
• luckman212 4y ago
  I use Obsidian[0] with lots of nice markdown formatting and screenshots. Does that count? [0] https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md
  • firstSpeaker 4y ago
    The whole idea is about adding graphical notations to the notes to make it more visual. Visual notes supposedly are absorbed faster and have higher retention. I updated the ASK's description with a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchnoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchnoting There are plenty of blogs and courses about it and I thought to check with the community before diving deeper.
• bjourne 4y ago
  I make graphs. For every fact I want to remember I draw a vertex whose label is the fact. Then if I realize that two facts are related I draw an edge adjoining their vertices. Sometimes I use different pen colors to categorize facts and sometimes I put annotations on the edges too. Roughly like a mind map except the graphs are cyclic and undirected and this makes a very big difference.
  • firstSpeaker 4y ago
    Do you have any sample photo of some of the graph you made? or maybe screenshot if they are digital and of course if you are willing to share. I am trying to visualize it.
    • bjourne 4y ago
      Sure, see https://ibb.co/NKBvMgw https://ibb.co/NKBvMgw
• dominotw 4y ago
  I tried it for a while but was taking too much work. Perhaps I would've gotten better had i stick to it.
• Terretta 4y ago
  Yes. Since early teens I frame notes in graph paper notebooks in a kind of information system geography. This is not the same as a mind-map which is just hierarchy (an outline recast as cartoon bubbles and lines). When concepts lay out and interconnect like a periodic table of elements, symmetries, misalignments, or gaps suggest where you’re onto something, or perhaps the conception is mistaken, or more research is needed. These can prove quite dense, a single well woven page can take 50 powerpoint slides to unpack and bullet or diagram more conventionally. I use obsidian and similar markdown tools but the shape of a system or information is lost in most text tools. Excalidraw is useful, as is Kroki.io, for tying the two approaches together. But mostly Apple Pencil and Goodnotes w/ graph paper.