I do like paper, its very reliable with WiFi signals and very efficient with battery life. Pencils are nice because they provide undo. If I just need to find t

I do like paper, its very reliable with WiFi signals and very efficient with battery life. Pencils are nice because they provide undo. If I just need to find the answers for a one-off change or fix, I'll use plain white printer paper (dated and labeled at the top for future archival or disposal). I'll draw boxes/diagrams/mind-maps like crazy if I need them. If its a major system that I'll be working with a long time, I go with insanely cheap composition books of the same width and height (standardize!) Seriously, don't spend more than a dollar for a notebook that has a good chance you'll throw it away in a year. If you're going to use one for your own journaling/designing and not mere notetaking, go ahead and splurge--spend $2. Edit wrt Archival: Mostly, its being able to put the composition books away. Label and date the front of them so you can flip through them. I use different colors of covers so for any 4-5 of them I have "active" stand out and have fewer problems grabbing "the wrong book" when I know which color is which project. That's on the outside. On the inside, I reserve the first 5-6 pages for a handwritten table-of-contents that I update approximately monthly. All I do is dedicate one line per page in the book and summarize the contents of that page. This makes is easier to find relevant content inside without having to flip through 80 double-sided pages, I can skim 4-5 pages of topic lists. When things get too old or irrelevant, dating them helps you figure out if you need to throw the books away. (This is why you don't spend big money on these books, e.g. I would feel really guilty about throwing away a nice Moleskine book, but no qualms at all about tossing a $2 comp-book.)