3 ms·

Handwritten notes can be very useful in the short term. But there is often this impulse to implement some kind of digitization/archival system for them as well.

Handwritten notes can be very useful in the short term. But there is often this impulse to implement some kind of digitization/archival system for them as well. I wonder how many people who have done this have found real value in the digitized notes?

sph 3y ago
Digitized notes are a good idea in theory, in practice most notes are write-only and are never read back ever again. Add the fact that writing a note by hand is proven to be a much better memory aid than storing it in a computer. I suffer from terrible memory retention because of ADHD, so I need to rely to external storage more than most people—yet after obsessing about note taking for a while I reached productivity enlightenment: I really do not need to remember and categorise most of my thoughts and notes. I produce millions of ideas every day, and I have, hopefully, other 50 years ahead of me of potentially interesting thoughts I might feel I want to remember, only to collapse under this ever-increasing weight of nonsense, of things that seemed important one day, and really were not in the grand scheme of things. No, these days I write, seldomly, on a paper notebook. I embrace my terrible memory and use it as a tool, to aggressively cull every extraneous thought du jour. If it's important, it'll come up again. If it's truly important, it'll keep me awake at night. That is the real problem of digital notes: they never fade away. The only things I keep in Org Mode are memories from decades ago I am sure I will want to reminisce about when I am 80. Like my family tree, the list of video games I loved as a kid, the important dates of my life.
crestfallen 3y ago
In my experience (FWIW) there is value in archiving and preserving notes and other documents. Typically that value is realized when you actually go back to them. That's the hard part. If you can make that a habit, you're off to the races.
voussoir 3y ago
I agree that I will probably never use these notes to go back and actually learn anything. I did this scanning project because I wanted to shred the paper and be rid of it, but I felt I should keep it digitally because it's so cheap and easy to. It seems sad to just discard work, even though the actual knowledge is still contained in the textbooks and, hopefully, my brain. But the doodles are worth more than the lecture notes from a nostalgia perspective.
mixedmath 3y ago
I've found digitizing notes is not useful to me. I digitized all my notes from grad school and they're sort of a wash now. I still take lots of paper notes. One thing that had been very useful is to make (short, simple) indices in my paper notes and to digitize just the indices. It takes almost no time. The result is that when I want to look at old noted I can look up where in my digital indices, and then walk over to a shelf and pick out my notes. I've used this *a lot* and it's surprisingly helpful. Caveat: I'm a mathematician, so I have a lot of paper notes and half-baked ideas. So my paper notes often look more like a set of laboratory notebooks and not idle learning notebooks. I essentoally never look back on noted I take while learning some new subject.
- melagonster 3y ago
  This is interesting to see how mathematician. Does this mean you store all unfinished works on shelf and keep forward every time?
cladopa 3y ago
I find it useful for storage. I digitalise everything with an automatic feeder scanner. I am using hundreds of sheets of paper at any given moment. Those I don't use, I archive in boxes(if they are important) or throw them away(after digitalising). I travel a lot, so when I need some notes, I just print them again in color whenever I am. I only process the notes automatically with an AI in order to search. But nothing sophisticated and storage is cheap so they remain a high quality image, I do not bother making it into a proprietary eink format(although I calculate it for searching). I do not use the iPad for that, because paper and color pens give me way more real state for way less money and eink capabilities.

sph 3y ago

Digitized notes are a good idea in theory, in practice most notes are write-only and are never read back ever again. Add the fact that writing a note by hand is proven to be a much better memory aid than storing it in a computer. I suffer from terrible memory retention because of ADHD, so I need to rely to external storage more than most people—yet after obsessing about note taking for a while I reached productivity enlightenment: I really do not need to remember and categorise most of my thoughts and notes. I produce millions of ideas every day, and I have, hopefully, other 50 years ahead of me of potentially interesting thoughts I might feel I want to remember, only to collapse under this ever-increasing weight of nonsense, of things that seemed important one day, and really were not in the grand scheme of things. No, these days I write, seldomly, on a paper notebook. I embrace my terrible memory and use it as a tool, to aggressively cull every extraneous thought du jour. If it's important, it'll come up again. If it's truly important, it'll keep me awake at night. That is the real problem of digital notes: they never fade away. The only things I keep in Org Mode are memories from decades ago I am sure I will want to reminisce about when I am 80. Like my family tree, the list of video games I loved as a kid, the important dates of my life.

crestfallen 3y ago

In my experience (FWIW) there is value in archiving and preserving notes and other documents. Typically that value is realized when you actually go back to them. That's the hard part. If you can make that a habit, you're off to the races.

voussoir 3y ago

I agree that I will probably never use these notes to go back and actually learn anything. I did this scanning project because I wanted to shred the paper and be rid of it, but I felt I should keep it digitally because it's so cheap and easy to. It seems sad to just discard work, even though the actual knowledge is still contained in the textbooks and, hopefully, my brain. But the doodles are worth more than the lecture notes from a nostalgia perspective.

mixedmath 3y ago

I've found digitizing notes is not useful to me. I digitized all my notes from grad school and they're sort of a wash now. I still take lots of paper notes. One thing that had been very useful is to make (short, simple) indices in my paper notes and to digitize just the indices. It takes almost no time. The result is that when I want to look at old noted I can look up where in my digital indices, and then walk over to a shelf and pick out my notes. I've used this *a lot* and it's surprisingly helpful. Caveat: I'm a mathematician, so I have a lot of paper notes and half-baked ideas. So my paper notes often look more like a set of laboratory notebooks and not idle learning notebooks. I essentoally never look back on noted I take while learning some new subject.

melagonster 3y ago
This is interesting to see how mathematician. Does this mean you store all unfinished works on shelf and keep forward every time?

cladopa 3y ago

I find it useful for storage. I digitalise everything with an automatic feeder scanner. I am using hundreds of sheets of paper at any given moment. Those I don't use, I archive in boxes(if they are important) or throw them away(after digitalising). I travel a lot, so when I need some notes, I just print them again in color whenever I am. I only process the notes automatically with an AI in order to search. But nothing sophisticated and storage is cheap so they remain a high quality image, I do not bother making it into a proprietary eink format(although I calculate it for searching). I do not use the iPad for that, because paper and color pens give me way more real state for way less money and eink capabilities.