8 ms·

Take notes by hand, not on a laptop

114 points by jamesbritt 12y ago

Htsthbjig 12y ago
Do not tell me what to do. I take notes using my tablet and a wacom like device, it works great.
- plucas 12y ago
  Wouldn't using a "wacom like" device count as "by hand"?
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    Of course. Seems like it might be the best of both worlds if you can avoid toggling over to the IRC back-channel and the like.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Do not tell me what to do. Why? Are you perfectly capable of making the best decisions without any external input? Or you'd rather make your own decision (even if its BS in some cases), than an externally informed one?
jmgrosen 12y ago
Anecdotally, I've taken notes in my math classes using org-mode + LaTeX snippets for the last two years, and I feel like I'm learning the material better this way. I can look up background knowledge around a subject, view an alternate definition of a term, or briefly go more in depth than how my teacher/professor presented something. In addition, I end up with very nice-looking notes in the end that I can share with friends if they need them! (Plus, just staring at LaTeX-generated math is awe-inspiring... hhnnnnngggg)
jamesbritt 12y ago
A few years ago I noticed that despite spending time in numerous conference sessions I often did not recall very much at the end of the day. I would typically have my laptop open, ostensibly to take notes, but the ease of distraction was too great for me. Too easy to get caught up Googling stuff or writing code or following the live tweet stream. I then tried keeping the device closed while taking notes on a small paper notepad. My notes were so much better. If I really did not care for the talk I would draw pictures; I'd still have a better recall of the talk than if I was using a laptop. Using a tablet (as Htsthbjig mentioned) seems like a good alternative since you then have digital storage, if you are still hand-writing the content. At least for me that difference in action (writing versus typing, and using assorted pen-lines and sizes/styles/placement of content) is key for helping me recall things.
- frou_dh 12y ago
  In the meatspace events I've attended that pushed it, the whole #hashtag #live-audience-commentary #having-a-blast-at-x #PLZ-USE-THE-HASHTAG hoopla was complete asinine nonsense. At a basic level it's also disrespectful to the presenters for the organisers to be promoting mass-distraction of the audience.
- iconjack 12y ago
  Not to mention the distraction it causes to many of those around you.
Ayaz 12y ago
I find that in most cases, for me at least, taking notes on a smart-phone instead is a reasonable middle way. Of course, I have to make sure I don't get distracted, but surprisingly, while taking notes on the phone, I don't feel the urge to do so (but I suppose every one's mileage may vary). However, since it takes time and effort to tap down notes on a smart-phone, doing so likely produces the same results that does taking notes on a paper with a pen. PS: I regularly take down notes on my phone during work meetings.
pessimizer 12y ago
I've always done it, and I sense a vibe from people like "he hasn't come to work" when I have a notebook and pencil, and they're on twitter/IM the entire time. There's a herdmind social pressure aspect to this. Taking notes by hand definitely improves my memory for things. I thought it might be the process of production that did it - that it had to go through your eyes and ears into your fingers, and that the output looked nothing like the input that cemented it, but the theory advanced here (aggressive filtering) sounds good, too. I've always been annoyed at lecturers that stopped for long periods to allow notes to be taken verbatim. Wouldn't that kill the effect if that were the cause?
zupa-hu 12y ago
One shouldn't take notes at all. Class is for understanding; material should be available in books. Notebooks are an escape if the class is boring/irrelevant. They should not be banned, so students can make at least something useful. I learned a lot about programming in high school from printed materials from under the desk in some classes which where not for me.
- dominotw 12y ago
  I usually jot down stuff like 'further reading' when a prof mentions 'look this by x'.
- irremediable 12y ago
  I'd hesitate to enforce one approach on everyone. I find that making notes helps me to understand. I'm an algebraic rather than an analytical thinker, and I like to scrawl out some thoughts and equations as I learn from the lecturer.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Class is for understanding; notes are for recording the class, so that the understanding can be revitalized at a later date. In other words, notes are your tool to have access to those critical moments of understanding again, later. I don't know about you, but even if I have a "eureka" moment, it may start to slip through my fingers and require refreshing once or twice.
  - zupa-hu 12y ago
    I am not saying having a recording of the class is not important. It absolutely is. Just let me download it. I guess Khan Academy and it's breed could satisfy both camps.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      I do love having recordings of a lecture, but that is a very recent development and not always offered. Up until somewhere in the 2008-2010 timeframe, recording/storing/serving decent video in a systematic, campus-wide fashion was a very daunting task. (Thankfully the hardware & storage has gotten much cheaper, and people's internet is faster)
Jare 12y ago
I'm surprised they didn't try to get data on students who didn't take any notes at all. Back in the 90s I irritated quite a few college teachers by not doing any note taking - my ability to do handwriting has always been terrible and I absorbed much better by not doing it and then latching on to my friend's notes. Later on, taking notes on laptops proved a much better experience, and these days it's Markdown for the best results / effort (if I needed heavy math I'd have probably learned LaTex).
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  I had a linear algebra course in college where I had to make the choice of take notes or pay attention. The professor had a really high-density style, filling multiple blackboards and inevitably turning his black suit to some form of gray by the end of class. I usually opted for paying attention, trying to grok the key concepts rather than endless details.
  - personlurking 12y ago
    For these cases, it'd almost be worth it to take a snap-shot (pic) of the blackboards.
    - leviathan 12y ago
      I did that once back at university. It was also a linear algebra course. Of course, at that time there was no cellphones that took pictures, and I happened to be carrying a bulky camera with me.
  - kaitai 12y ago
    This was much of math grad school for me. I have a remarkable ability: I can write down exactly what people said and process absolutely nothing, in beautiful cursive. Or I can listen. Now that I know my subject much better, I can take notes & really get something out of it, because I can process the material at the same time.
    - 12y ago
keithpeter 12y ago
Wondering if there was any control over the form of the written notes in the study? Laptop: probably typed text input given the comments about verbatim recording of speech. Paper: Quite possibly mind maps or hierarchically arranged notes that mirror the structure of the talk. Diagrams and rapid tabulations (even just 'pros' and 'cons' of a position the speaker is outlining). Seems much richer. As others have suggested a third group using tablet/stylus in a visual note-taking program might be interesting to include.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  Do people actually take "structured" notes like that? My experience was that my recall with the handwritten notes was better, but my handwritten notes weren't much different from my typed notes. In fact, my typed notes usually contained more information (as the article notes) since I am a much faster typist than writer. In both cases, I basically wrote down what the professor said. It might have been abbreviated, and I wouldn't bother with things I didn't think mattered, but they were very much essentially an unstructured and disjointed narrative of the class. I didn't feel like I had the time to structure them (into say, pro/con lists) because that kind of information often was something I could only extract after the fact. For example, a professor might start speaking about a particular subject, mention a benefit to that approach (pro, right?!) but then go on another five minutes about what that entailed, leaving that part of my notes long behind and so keeping me from really structuring it as a pro/con list. If I thought a professor was saying something especially important I might sit there, absorb it, and frantically write down a condensed version as he started into something else, but that was as close as I got to any kind of structure. On the very rare occasions I reread and reorganized my notes, I did do something of the sort. But I rarely bothered because a) my notes were hardly readable in the first place and b) it didn't seem worth it since I already understood the material by that time. Oddly, I think my bad handwriting might have contributed to the quality of my notes: when I did go back and read them, I had to read them very slowly, again and again, to understand them and I often had to fill in several words from context since they were mostly illegible.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
lunchladydoris 12y ago
Wow, those are some large error bars.
- lucb1e 12y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking. Not sure we can really draw conclusions from this...
yodsanklai 12y ago
I find it very hard to understand new concepts if I don't have a pen and piece of paper to take notes and draw some diagrams... Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce this experience with a keyboard and a mouse/trackpad. How do the kids learn maths or CS nowadays? I can't imagine that they do it exclusively with a laptop.
kybernetyk 12y ago
Having been a heavy computer user since the age of 12 my handwriting is so cryptic now I couldn't decipher my written notes after 2 hours.
- MartinCron 12y ago
  If you're anything like me, your default speed is too damn fast for handwriting. If you slooooow down, you may be surprised.
MaxScheiber 12y ago
If a professor is lecturing off of bullet-point-style slide decks, I suspect that the benefits of taking notes by hand are reduced. I always handwrite my notes, and I've found that I learn better from trying to understand diagram-based slides than from copying bullet points summarizing what's in the diagram. I'm sure this isn't exactly mystical to most of you; trying to understand a diagram requires you to think, while copying down bullet points does not.
sliverstorm 12y ago
FWIW, in the business environment, I find the people who are the most connected and seem to know everything are the ones who do a good job of taking notes with a computer. It's a bit of a different story, of course, because rather than learning what they are really doing is compiling vast troves of information, like a squirrel harvesting nuts, and the advantages of computerized notes (ease of searching, for example) pay large dividends in this scenario.
kenjackson 12y ago
They should try with a Surface Pro device. I wonder if handwriting notes on a tablet is any different.
- teamonkey 12y ago
  My experience of taking notes that way on the Surface Pro 2 wasn't fantastic. It feels different to a pen and paper and that's probably my biggest issue The screen is a little too narrow to be comfortable in a portrait fashion and too heavy to hold in landscape. The pen also has some calibration issues which makes my handwriting much larger and less legible than it would be on a notepad. The SP3 should fix those issues, I think. It's a little better for mind mapping since I'm able to move the page around, erase stuff and use colours, but I have to hold it in landscape. I think the larger screen of the SP3 would help there too though.
- timothyb89 12y ago
  I've been using an older tablet PC for notetaking for a few months, switching from a combination of typed and pencil + paper notes. Anecdotally I think think is the best notetaking solution I've yet tried since: * No smudging (left-handedness issues solved!) * Never out of paper or space to write * Very fast erase, almost no cost to correcting mistakes * Can move things around on the "paper" very quickly * Copy and paste, resizing, shape recognition, ... * Can insert graphics, formulas, etc as needed, quickly Honestly the only downside is battery life and I'm working around that with a 2nd battery. My overall note quality has massively increased and I find I can keep up with lectures without any trouble, something I often couldn't do with only pencil + paper due to my slow writing speed and frequency of mistakes. Specifically I use xournalpp [1] and ipython with a custom onscreen keyboard layout for math-related activities. It works exceedingly well for a ~$300 total investment (used PC + FOSS apps). [1]: https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp
  - asdasdkjhasd 12y ago
    I concur; xournal with any old Thinkpad Tablet PC is definitely the sweet spot for me, too, and it has allowed me to go completely paperless for a couple of years now.
x0054 12y ago
Being a lazy person by nature, at least when it comes to things I do not care about, I always took outline style notes on a computer. I think the key to note taking is not necessarily the implement you use but rather how you take the notes. I found that any word processor that allows you to build a bullet list works just fine. That being said, I can not tell you how many of my Law School classmates literally transcribed the entire lecture. Sometimes it was kind of nice though, because if I miss a class, I could borrow the notes from someone, read them, and take my notes based on that. I always tried to limit my notes to one typed page per hour (10 pint). As a side hint, to any one who might be in school right now. I used to scan all of my books at the beginning of the semester into my computer. I had a little book scanner, and it would take about 1-1.5 hours per book, I would watch TV or listen to an audiobook while scanning. That way you don't have to drag heavy books around with you, and instead, you can have nice, searchable textbooks any time you need them, on your laptop. Of course, if you are less than honest, or just exceedingly poor, you could also borrow the books from the library rather then buy them. Of course, I could not recommend that as it would mean braking the law :)
- sampo 12y ago
  I don't think scanning a library book, or a book borrowed from a friend, for personal use, is breaking the law in any country.
  - x0054 12y ago
    In US you would argue fair use while the book publisher would argue that you infringed their copyright by harming the market for that book. Once you scan the book, you no longer have any need to buy it, thus they loose an extra sale. Of course, practically speaking, as long as you don't go around selling your newly scanned copy of said book to all of your classmates, you shouldn't run into any problems.
    - welterde 12y ago
      At my university we can just keep the book for the whole semester.. so the students here rarely buy books anyway (except when the library is selling it's old books.. lots of bargains to be had :).
rdtsc 12y ago
100% agree. I always take notes by hand. I have tried doing on the computer and by hand. By hand is better. There are 2 advantages the way I see it: 1) The motor effects of moving the pen somehow help me remember the information better. It is as if I later remember moving the pen on paper when I have to recall the information. It is very likely that I just trained myself this way over many years. 2) I can sketch. I have a very visual memory and quite often I doodle diagram. Arrows connecting to boxes. A little graph with a relationship can be drawn and visualized very quickly when it might take a whole paragraph to describe.
- teamonkey 12y ago
  Have you tried mind mapping, particularly the Buzan method?
  - rdtsc 12y ago
    I have tried a few mind map software and tried doing it with a pen and paper. It works better with pen and paper. With software I often get bogged down in the incidental complexity of using the software itself and it distracts from the actual information. Mind maps are useful for consolidating and summarizing a large pile of new information. Say the components of an operating system kernel. Or how sorting algorithms works. Stuff like that. Usually with lectures, smaller more focused concepts are presented, so then I still mostly take notes with outlines and diagrams. But when studying for exams, I might letter build a mind-map from the notes. At some point in high-school I sort of discovered the Buzan (repetitive recall) method on my own. In the Soviet Union, in schools quite often one had oral exams. Where have 100 questions related to anything you learned in the semester or year. And then when you come in, you have to randomly pick from one of the 100 question. Well that means you need to have a mind-map like understanding of pretty much everything. So students studied for the big final test some number of weeks. During those weeks I discovered how certain cyclical summarization and repetition worked best. Also discovered that sugar helps memorize stuff.
Mz 12y ago
I am 49. I can't help but wonder at aspects like "How does age/culture of the person in question impact this outcome?" I mean, I grew up with a rotary phone and a pet dinosaur, not a jillion and one ADHD-inducing distractions. I imagine I would take notes different from most of you young whippersnappers. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.
- gatehouse 12y ago
  It is brutal to try to be sitting in the middle of a lecture hall trying to focus on a dimly lit academic at the same time as 20-50 future college dropouts flicker their laptops back and forth between facebook, twitter, and half-assed note taking attempts... this is only really a problem in intro level courses though.
zapt02 12y ago
My programming professor used to say that programming an algorithm was always more effective on paper and that computer removed some of your skill.
ivancamilov 12y ago
If I was still in college, I would: 1) Record the audio of the lectures 2) Do a quick mind map with an tablet. That way you get all the technology benefits with none of the reported issues.
ibrahima 12y ago
I don't know what it is, but somehow being in front of a laptop reduces my cognitive ability significantly :/. I actually take notes on a tablet just so that my notes are all in one place but I kind of wonder if I should go back to paper. It's not even the distraction possibilities I think, though that does happen. I can have some task to do, open up my laptop to do it, and then instantly forget what it was I wanted to do, then go on HN/reddit for a while and then realize I was supposed to be doing something...
bak3dj0 12y ago
But with a laptop you can just use a graphics tablet and you'll save trees from getting turned into paper.
- dmoo 12y ago
  Trees are a crop with a long growth cycle. If you don't need paper then you don't plant trees.
arikrak 12y ago
> But the crazy thing is that the many college students being distracted by their laptops are simultaneously paying tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of doing so. No, most students are paying for a credential so they can get a job, and also for social and other aspects of college. While there may be some students who want to listen to a lecture but get distracted, I think most choose not to listen because lectures aren't usually that interesting or even helpful. You need to be actively involved to learn a topic, and taking notes may be the best option available in a lecture. But once you leave the lecture behind, students can be involved more directly, such as by working on challenges as they learn. It would be interesting to see a study that compared students who took notes to those who answered questions.
tzs 12y ago
The device I want: a computer keyboard with built-in storage or support for a memory card or flash drive. It can be used as a normal keyboard with a desktop computer. You can also take it away from the computer and put it into "note taking mode". In this mode, you can type and it records your typing. When you return to your desktop, you can tell the keyboard to play back your notes and it sends them to the computer as if you are typing them. Optional feature: a one line LCD display so you can see your typing in note mode. This gives the speed of typing, without the distraction of a laptop.
- e2e8 12y ago
  Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart
ianstallings 12y ago
One of the smartest guys I know always carries index cards and a set of pens and records almost everything he works on that way, before putting it into a formal digital design. I carry a notebook and I highly recommend it for all the reasons described but I have one more - going through them years later is a huge amount of fun. Seeing old ideas sketched out makes me happy and I keep all my notebooks in a stash for later perusal. Looking at old digital documents doesn't give me the same feeling, with tangible paper and ink bringing back memories.
binarycrusader 12y ago
While this advice sounds great, I assure you it doesn't apply to everyone. For example, I've never been able to write for extended periods without my hand cramping horribly. I suspect it's because I've been typing since somewhere before or at the age of five years old. I type fast enough that I can keep up with most speakers word for word if I need to. Writing them down? Forget about it; in the time it takes me to actually scribble out a few short words, the speaker has long since moved on and I'm already lost. I think the better suggestion instead is to minimise distractions. Turn off wi-fi, open your favourite editor in full-screen mode, and avoid other applications. Apply the technology effectively instead of blaming it for the failure.
- reddit_clone 12y ago
  Why would you type word for word? You are better off using a recorder no? Being able to draw pictures, mind maps etc is a huge plus with paper based note taking.
- wffurr 12y ago
  It's not "advice", it's data reported from a study.
  - binarycrusader 12y ago
    Maybe it isn't "advice", but it is subjective interpretation, since the results are an interpretation of a single study. Nor does the study appear to account for other factors, such as physical constraints. Obviously, in my particular case, I can't physically write for more than a few minutes at a time. And quite frankly, my handwriting has degraded to the point where it's barely legible even to myself unless I place a rather exhausting amount of effort into it.
withdavidli 12y ago
100% disagree from a personal standpoint. Loved taking notes via laptop for the pure reason it was faster and then I could actually participate in classroom conversation. All during my non-college years I was forced to take notes via pen and paper. I remember that I actually threw my pen down in history class one day because all the slides and not knowing what's actually going on. My teacher was perplexed, but understood my reasoning. I'm too busy scribbling down pages of notes, to comprehend anything until I read it again. This might mean I was just a poor note taker though. But having digital notes helped me much more, especially when searching or sections to study and having something much more legible. I can't be the only one who this is a case for. Remember most classes where the teacher asks a question and all but 2-3 students where rapidly copying notes instead of answering? Though this might be a heuristic error, but I remember this to be the rule instead of the exception.
quotient 12y ago
I agree that taking notes by hand allows me to focus better on the lecture, improves recall, and is generally more engaging. Yet I still choose to take notes on my laptop. Why? I first note that there are, in my opinion, two major types of lectures: there are those in which I only need to note down major ideas and in which it is more important to listen to the lecture, and those which move more quickly, making it necessary to note down everything, as a single omitted detail can cause hours of confusion later on. It is clear that for the first type of class, handwritten notes are just as good as those taken on a computer. There is little difference between the two, practically. For the second type of class, however, it is clearly easier to type notes. Most people type faster than they handwrite, and with reasonable proficiency in LaTeX, anyone is able to more or less type up an entire lecture of notes quite easily. But my reason for typing notes goes beyond that: the major issue I have with handwriting my notes is the inevitable accumulation of loose-leaf paper, and the ensuing confusion. I have only rarely actually managed to keep together an entire set of handwritten notes on a class. More rare is the case in which I actually manage to decipher my own handwriting later on, and rarest of all for me is actually going over handwritten notes. For some reason, I (virtually) never bother revisiting my handwritten notes. Organizationally, handwriting my notes is an enormous hassle that I cannot deal with. It just never works out. Electronic notes --- I keep a single .tex/.pdf for each class --- are much easier to maintain, organize, and browse later on. I can continue making revisions, add hyperlinks to relevant web resources, etc. Moreover, as they are (when you are sufficiently quick) easier to take than handwritten notes, it's also easier to thus create a complete set of notes that cover everything. I recognize that by transcribing all my lectures in real-time, I am probably missing out on some of the experience I would have if I were more immersed in my professors' lectures, although I feel that I should point out that despite taking notes electronically, I am quite immersed. After some time of practice, I'm able to listen and pay reasonably close attention to the lecture while I'm just typing as the professor speaks. I would probably be more immersed if I were not taking notes at all, or very few, on a piece of paper, but as it is, having a complete set of typeset notes is just far more valuable to me (not to mention the value to the other students, and occasionally even to the professor --- I often distribute my notes to others).
thorne 12y ago
I took all my notes in org-mode on a little Eee PC for my last two years and graduated summa. A representative quote from the article says, "research shows students who use laptops perform more poorly in classes." This is the standard statistician's fallacy of confusing individuals with Gaussian distributions. You are not a statistical amalgam; you are an individual. If you are too stupid to use a laptop as a tool without turning it into a distracting toy, then don't use one; but don't imply that everybody shares your malady.
dm2 12y ago
I found that taking notes by hand and then rewriting them on a computer works nicely. When rewriting the notes you can make them more condensed and leave out the parts that might be irrelevant, but the information is still available with the handwritten notes if ever needed. Also, just making a summary of notes or an outline is a good way to remember and organize them. Will kids in 20 years still be taking notes or will they just upload entire textbooks to their brains?
wffurr 12y ago
Today's Doonesbury is on this exact topic: http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2014/06/08 http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2014/06/0...
mercer 12y ago
I find my 'natural' retention is better with hand-written notes. I get a better 'general idea' and I organically remember certain parts of the lecture. However, I also end up However, my long-term retention is far better and deeper with digital notes, as they are not only indexed by spotlight (osx), but I drop them into DEVONthink which can relate text to other text through word frequency (and perhaps some other techniques). For example, I remember attending a lecture in my fourth year where the teacher's statements sparked a memory of some earlier lecture. I entered some search terms in these tools and immediately found both the notes I had made three years earlier as well as the original articles that they were based on. As a bonus, I ended up remembering more about both these lectures and the topic at hand. My ideal approach would be to take notes by hand and then transcribe them into my 'information systems'. Unfortunately, I often forget this crucial second step and end up forgetting where I left those original notes, or losing them entirely. The same principle applies to reading. I much prefer reading and annotating on paper, with all the 'drawing' freedom that gives me. But reading an ebook, exporting all my highlights and annotations, and then importing them into my 'systems' has been much more valuable in the long run. (for an idea of how someone actually uses spotlight, devonthink, or some other digital storage system effectively, this could be informative: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000230.html http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002...)
hrktb 12y ago
My personal take out from this article is that typing on a keyboard is usually seen as distracting and somewhat less natural than hand writing. I would think a signifiant number of students would already type faster than they can write, and wouldn't even need to continually look at the screen to take readable enough notes. At least that's was my experience in college after 3/4 years on IRC.
gatehouse 12y ago
Here is a mind-dump of my personal note taking strategies, which are highly context dependent [CCW]: (FWIW, I studied in an elite-ish engineering program, finished with a B average) Lecture: My number one goal is to stay awake, and listening to the words coming out of the professor's mouth. For a chalk and talk scenario, I use a notepad (that tears off at the top) and follow the blackboard and add commentary. If I can't process the information, I devolve to rote copying. This is the raw material of studying that I will attempt to understand later. For slides: ideally I will have a copy of the slides and take notes overtop. If I don't have the slides before but I will have them after, then I will try to understand the information and take extra notes. If I will never have the slides I'm unlikely to really benefit from the lecture, I might actually buy the textbook. Tutorial: If the TA is good I'll sit still and pay attention to the problem solving. Otherwise I won't attend. No notes. Reading: Highlighting and margin notes on the first pass, and then very very terse notes on paper on the second pass. I might end up with 10 pages of notes for a one semester course. Other non-student situations: For keeping track of actions taken from the command line I use a text file, emacs org-mode, and keep track of every command run, issues that I ran into, and commands used to verify. After a few run-throughs this may get boiled down to a shell script or some other type of program. I initially developed this habit working on EC2 before EBS existed, but now I deliberately destoy VMs and start from scratch often so I can be sure that I have a working process for getting up and running. For some type of programmatic data processing, I will usually use a python file. As I'm working I won't revise anything, I'll just keep adding on the bottom. I will then run it like "% python -i scratch.py" so I can examine failure at the prompt and continue to add the the file and re-run as I figure things out. For memory augmentation while thinking, for example for design work, I personally generally use letter (A4) size paper along with a pen, so I can spread out the paper on my desk while I get to grips with the problem. Typical to fill 3-10 pages. At this point I'm mainly using the computer just to retrieve reference material and the verify things. Ideally these notes get scanned later but I probably won't use them again. Stage 2 is to take the notes and try to distil it into a 1-page coherent top-down design. Sometimes I will cheat by using 11x17 notepad and a mechanical pencil, which allows an extravagant amount of detail an a single sheet. I currently have a fresh A3 170-page moleskine that I'm saving for some kind of massive project that needs this much space. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8862931956/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8862931956/ )

114 points by jamesbritt 12y ago

Htsthbjig 12y ago

Do not tell me what to do. I take notes using my tablet and a wacom like device, it works great.

plucas 12y ago
Wouldn't using a "wacom like" device count as "by hand"?
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  Of course. Seems like it might be the best of both worlds if you can avoid toggling over to the IRC back-channel and the like.
coldtea 12y ago
>Do not tell me what to do. Why? Are you perfectly capable of making the best decisions without any external input? Or you'd rather make your own decision (even if its BS in some cases), than an externally informed one?

jmgrosen 12y ago

Anecdotally, I've taken notes in my math classes using org-mode + LaTeX snippets for the last two years, and I feel like I'm learning the material better this way. I can look up background knowledge around a subject, view an alternate definition of a term, or briefly go more in depth than how my teacher/professor presented something. In addition, I end up with very nice-looking notes in the end that I can share with friends if they need them! (Plus, just staring at LaTeX-generated math is awe-inspiring... hhnnnnngggg)

jamesbritt 12y ago

A few years ago I noticed that despite spending time in numerous conference sessions I often did not recall very much at the end of the day. I would typically have my laptop open, ostensibly to take notes, but the ease of distraction was too great for me. Too easy to get caught up Googling stuff or writing code or following the live tweet stream. I then tried keeping the device closed while taking notes on a small paper notepad. My notes were so much better. If I really did not care for the talk I would draw pictures; I'd still have a better recall of the talk than if I was using a laptop. Using a tablet (as Htsthbjig mentioned) seems like a good alternative since you then have digital storage, if you are still hand-writing the content. At least for me that difference in action (writing versus typing, and using assorted pen-lines and sizes/styles/placement of content) is key for helping me recall things.

frou_dh 12y ago
In the meatspace events I've attended that pushed it, the whole #hashtag #live-audience-commentary #having-a-blast-at-x #PLZ-USE-THE-HASHTAG hoopla was complete asinine nonsense. At a basic level it's also disrespectful to the presenters for the organisers to be promoting mass-distraction of the audience.
iconjack 12y ago
Not to mention the distraction it causes to many of those around you.

Ayaz 12y ago

I find that in most cases, for me at least, taking notes on a smart-phone instead is a reasonable middle way. Of course, I have to make sure I don't get distracted, but surprisingly, while taking notes on the phone, I don't feel the urge to do so (but I suppose every one's mileage may vary). However, since it takes time and effort to tap down notes on a smart-phone, doing so likely produces the same results that does taking notes on a paper with a pen. PS: I regularly take down notes on my phone during work meetings.

pessimizer 12y ago

I've always done it, and I sense a vibe from people like "he hasn't come to work" when I have a notebook and pencil, and they're on twitter/IM the entire time. There's a herdmind social pressure aspect to this. Taking notes by hand definitely improves my memory for things. I thought it might be the process of production that did it - that it had to go through your eyes and ears into your fingers, and that the output looked nothing like the input that cemented it, but the theory advanced here (aggressive filtering) sounds good, too. I've always been annoyed at lecturers that stopped for long periods to allow notes to be taken verbatim. Wouldn't that kill the effect if that were the cause?

zupa-hu 12y ago

One shouldn't take notes at all. Class is for understanding; material should be available in books. Notebooks are an escape if the class is boring/irrelevant. They should not be banned, so students can make at least something useful. I learned a lot about programming in high school from printed materials from under the desk in some classes which where not for me.

dominotw 12y ago
I usually jot down stuff like 'further reading' when a prof mentions 'look this by x'.
irremediable 12y ago
I'd hesitate to enforce one approach on everyone. I find that making notes helps me to understand. I'm an algebraic rather than an analytical thinker, and I like to scrawl out some thoughts and equations as I learn from the lecturer.
sliverstorm 12y ago
Class is for understanding; notes are for recording the class, so that the understanding can be revitalized at a later date. In other words, notes are your tool to have access to those critical moments of understanding again, later. I don't know about you, but even if I have a "eureka" moment, it may start to slip through my fingers and require refreshing once or twice.
- zupa-hu 12y ago
  I am not saying having a recording of the class is not important. It absolutely is. Just let me download it. I guess Khan Academy and it's breed could satisfy both camps.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    I do love having recordings of a lecture, but that is a very recent development and not always offered. Up until somewhere in the 2008-2010 timeframe, recording/storing/serving decent video in a systematic, campus-wide fashion was a very daunting task. (Thankfully the hardware & storage has gotten much cheaper, and people's internet is faster)

Jare 12y ago

I'm surprised they didn't try to get data on students who didn't take any notes at all. Back in the 90s I irritated quite a few college teachers by not doing any note taking - my ability to do handwriting has always been terrible and I absorbed much better by not doing it and then latching on to my friend's notes. Later on, taking notes on laptops proved a much better experience, and these days it's Markdown for the best results / effort (if I needed heavy math I'd have probably learned LaTex).

jamesbritt 12y ago
I had a linear algebra course in college where I had to make the choice of take notes or pay attention. The professor had a really high-density style, filling multiple blackboards and inevitably turning his black suit to some form of gray by the end of class. I usually opted for paying attention, trying to grok the key concepts rather than endless details.
- personlurking 12y ago
  For these cases, it'd almost be worth it to take a snap-shot (pic) of the blackboards.
  - leviathan 12y ago
    I did that once back at university. It was also a linear algebra course. Of course, at that time there was no cellphones that took pictures, and I happened to be carrying a bulky camera with me.
- kaitai 12y ago
  This was much of math grad school for me. I have a remarkable ability: I can write down exactly what people said and process absolutely nothing, in beautiful cursive. Or I can listen. Now that I know my subject much better, I can take notes & really get something out of it, because I can process the material at the same time.
  - 12y ago

keithpeter 12y ago

Wondering if there was any control over the form of the written notes in the study? Laptop: probably typed text input given the comments about verbatim recording of speech. Paper: Quite possibly mind maps or hierarchically arranged notes that mirror the structure of the talk. Diagrams and rapid tabulations (even just 'pros' and 'cons' of a position the speaker is outlining). Seems much richer. As others have suggested a third group using tablet/stylus in a visual note-taking program might be interesting to include.

Amezarak 12y ago
Do people actually take "structured" notes like that? My experience was that my recall with the handwritten notes was better, but my handwritten notes weren't much different from my typed notes. In fact, my typed notes usually contained more information (as the article notes) since I am a much faster typist than writer. In both cases, I basically wrote down what the professor said. It might have been abbreviated, and I wouldn't bother with things I didn't think mattered, but they were very much essentially an unstructured and disjointed narrative of the class. I didn't feel like I had the time to structure them (into say, pro/con lists) because that kind of information often was something I could only extract after the fact. For example, a professor might start speaking about a particular subject, mention a benefit to that approach (pro, right?!) but then go on another five minutes about what that entailed, leaving that part of my notes long behind and so keeping me from really structuring it as a pro/con list. If I thought a professor was saying something especially important I might sit there, absorb it, and frantically write down a condensed version as he started into something else, but that was as close as I got to any kind of structure. On the very rare occasions I reread and reorganized my notes, I did do something of the sort. But I rarely bothered because a) my notes were hardly readable in the first place and b) it didn't seem worth it since I already understood the material by that time. Oddly, I think my bad handwriting might have contributed to the quality of my notes: when I did go back and read them, I had to read them very slowly, again and again, to understand them and I often had to fill in several words from context since they were mostly illegible.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

lunchladydoris 12y ago

Wow, those are some large error bars.

lucb1e 12y ago
Exactly what I was thinking. Not sure we can really draw conclusions from this...

yodsanklai 12y ago

I find it very hard to understand new concepts if I don't have a pen and piece of paper to take notes and draw some diagrams... Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce this experience with a keyboard and a mouse/trackpad. How do the kids learn maths or CS nowadays? I can't imagine that they do it exclusively with a laptop.

kybernetyk 12y ago

Having been a heavy computer user since the age of 12 my handwriting is so cryptic now I couldn't decipher my written notes after 2 hours.

MartinCron 12y ago
If you're anything like me, your default speed is too damn fast for handwriting. If you slooooow down, you may be surprised.

MaxScheiber 12y ago

If a professor is lecturing off of bullet-point-style slide decks, I suspect that the benefits of taking notes by hand are reduced. I always handwrite my notes, and I've found that I learn better from trying to understand diagram-based slides than from copying bullet points summarizing what's in the diagram. I'm sure this isn't exactly mystical to most of you; trying to understand a diagram requires you to think, while copying down bullet points does not.

sliverstorm 12y ago

FWIW, in the business environment, I find the people who are the most connected and seem to know everything are the ones who do a good job of taking notes with a computer. It's a bit of a different story, of course, because rather than learning what they are really doing is compiling vast troves of information, like a squirrel harvesting nuts, and the advantages of computerized notes (ease of searching, for example) pay large dividends in this scenario.

kenjackson 12y ago

They should try with a Surface Pro device. I wonder if handwriting notes on a tablet is any different.

teamonkey 12y ago
My experience of taking notes that way on the Surface Pro 2 wasn't fantastic. It feels different to a pen and paper and that's probably my biggest issue The screen is a little too narrow to be comfortable in a portrait fashion and too heavy to hold in landscape. The pen also has some calibration issues which makes my handwriting much larger and less legible than it would be on a notepad. The SP3 should fix those issues, I think. It's a little better for mind mapping since I'm able to move the page around, erase stuff and use colours, but I have to hold it in landscape. I think the larger screen of the SP3 would help there too though.
timothyb89 12y ago
I've been using an older tablet PC for notetaking for a few months, switching from a combination of typed and pencil + paper notes. Anecdotally I think think is the best notetaking solution I've yet tried since: * No smudging (left-handedness issues solved!) * Never out of paper or space to write * Very fast erase, almost no cost to correcting mistakes * Can move things around on the "paper" very quickly * Copy and paste, resizing, shape recognition, ... * Can insert graphics, formulas, etc as needed, quickly Honestly the only downside is battery life and I'm working around that with a 2nd battery. My overall note quality has massively increased and I find I can keep up with lectures without any trouble, something I often couldn't do with only pencil + paper due to my slow writing speed and frequency of mistakes. Specifically I use xournalpp [1] and ipython with a custom onscreen keyboard layout for math-related activities. It works exceedingly well for a ~$300 total investment (used PC + FOSS apps). [1]: https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp
- asdasdkjhasd 12y ago
  I concur; xournal with any old Thinkpad Tablet PC is definitely the sweet spot for me, too, and it has allowed me to go completely paperless for a couple of years now.

x0054 12y ago

Being a lazy person by nature, at least when it comes to things I do not care about, I always took outline style notes on a computer. I think the key to note taking is not necessarily the implement you use but rather how you take the notes. I found that any word processor that allows you to build a bullet list works just fine. That being said, I can not tell you how many of my Law School classmates literally transcribed the entire lecture. Sometimes it was kind of nice though, because if I miss a class, I could borrow the notes from someone, read them, and take my notes based on that. I always tried to limit my notes to one typed page per hour (10 pint). As a side hint, to any one who might be in school right now. I used to scan all of my books at the beginning of the semester into my computer. I had a little book scanner, and it would take about 1-1.5 hours per book, I would watch TV or listen to an audiobook while scanning. That way you don't have to drag heavy books around with you, and instead, you can have nice, searchable textbooks any time you need them, on your laptop. Of course, if you are less than honest, or just exceedingly poor, you could also borrow the books from the library rather then buy them. Of course, I could not recommend that as it would mean braking the law :)

sampo 12y ago
I don't think scanning a library book, or a book borrowed from a friend, for personal use, is breaking the law in any country.
- x0054 12y ago
  In US you would argue fair use while the book publisher would argue that you infringed their copyright by harming the market for that book. Once you scan the book, you no longer have any need to buy it, thus they loose an extra sale. Of course, practically speaking, as long as you don't go around selling your newly scanned copy of said book to all of your classmates, you shouldn't run into any problems.
  - welterde 12y ago
    At my university we can just keep the book for the whole semester.. so the students here rarely buy books anyway (except when the library is selling it's old books.. lots of bargains to be had :).

rdtsc 12y ago

100% agree. I always take notes by hand. I have tried doing on the computer and by hand. By hand is better. There are 2 advantages the way I see it: 1) The motor effects of moving the pen somehow help me remember the information better. It is as if I later remember moving the pen on paper when I have to recall the information. It is very likely that I just trained myself this way over many years. 2) I can sketch. I have a very visual memory and quite often I doodle diagram. Arrows connecting to boxes. A little graph with a relationship can be drawn and visualized very quickly when it might take a whole paragraph to describe.

teamonkey 12y ago
Have you tried mind mapping, particularly the Buzan method?
- rdtsc 12y ago
  I have tried a few mind map software and tried doing it with a pen and paper. It works better with pen and paper. With software I often get bogged down in the incidental complexity of using the software itself and it distracts from the actual information. Mind maps are useful for consolidating and summarizing a large pile of new information. Say the components of an operating system kernel. Or how sorting algorithms works. Stuff like that. Usually with lectures, smaller more focused concepts are presented, so then I still mostly take notes with outlines and diagrams. But when studying for exams, I might letter build a mind-map from the notes. At some point in high-school I sort of discovered the Buzan (repetitive recall) method on my own. In the Soviet Union, in schools quite often one had oral exams. Where have 100 questions related to anything you learned in the semester or year. And then when you come in, you have to randomly pick from one of the 100 question. Well that means you need to have a mind-map like understanding of pretty much everything. So students studied for the big final test some number of weeks. During those weeks I discovered how certain cyclical summarization and repetition worked best. Also discovered that sugar helps memorize stuff.

Mz 12y ago

I am 49. I can't help but wonder at aspects like "How does age/culture of the person in question impact this outcome?" I mean, I grew up with a rotary phone and a pet dinosaur, not a jillion and one ADHD-inducing distractions. I imagine I would take notes different from most of you young whippersnappers. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.

gatehouse 12y ago
It is brutal to try to be sitting in the middle of a lecture hall trying to focus on a dimly lit academic at the same time as 20-50 future college dropouts flicker their laptops back and forth between facebook, twitter, and half-assed note taking attempts... this is only really a problem in intro level courses though.

zapt02 12y ago

My programming professor used to say that programming an algorithm was always more effective on paper and that computer removed some of your skill.

ivancamilov 12y ago

If I was still in college, I would: 1) Record the audio of the lectures 2) Do a quick mind map with an tablet. That way you get all the technology benefits with none of the reported issues.

ibrahima 12y ago

I don't know what it is, but somehow being in front of a laptop reduces my cognitive ability significantly :/. I actually take notes on a tablet just so that my notes are all in one place but I kind of wonder if I should go back to paper. It's not even the distraction possibilities I think, though that does happen. I can have some task to do, open up my laptop to do it, and then instantly forget what it was I wanted to do, then go on HN/reddit for a while and then realize I was supposed to be doing something...

bak3dj0 12y ago

But with a laptop you can just use a graphics tablet and you'll save trees from getting turned into paper.

dmoo 12y ago
Trees are a crop with a long growth cycle. If you don't need paper then you don't plant trees.

arikrak 12y ago

> But the crazy thing is that the many college students being distracted by their laptops are simultaneously paying tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of doing so. No, most students are paying for a credential so they can get a job, and also for social and other aspects of college. While there may be some students who want to listen to a lecture but get distracted, I think most choose not to listen because lectures aren't usually that interesting or even helpful. You need to be actively involved to learn a topic, and taking notes may be the best option available in a lecture. But once you leave the lecture behind, students can be involved more directly, such as by working on challenges as they learn. It would be interesting to see a study that compared students who took notes to those who answered questions.

tzs 12y ago

The device I want: a computer keyboard with built-in storage or support for a memory card or flash drive. It can be used as a normal keyboard with a desktop computer. You can also take it away from the computer and put it into "note taking mode". In this mode, you can type and it records your typing. When you return to your desktop, you can tell the keyboard to play back your notes and it sends them to the computer as if you are typing them. Optional feature: a one line LCD display so you can see your typing in note mode. This gives the speed of typing, without the distraction of a laptop.

e2e8 12y ago
Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart

ianstallings 12y ago

One of the smartest guys I know always carries index cards and a set of pens and records almost everything he works on that way, before putting it into a formal digital design. I carry a notebook and I highly recommend it for all the reasons described but I have one more - going through them years later is a huge amount of fun. Seeing old ideas sketched out makes me happy and I keep all my notebooks in a stash for later perusal. Looking at old digital documents doesn't give me the same feeling, with tangible paper and ink bringing back memories.

binarycrusader 12y ago

While this advice sounds great, I assure you it doesn't apply to everyone. For example, I've never been able to write for extended periods without my hand cramping horribly. I suspect it's because I've been typing since somewhere before or at the age of five years old. I type fast enough that I can keep up with most speakers word for word if I need to. Writing them down? Forget about it; in the time it takes me to actually scribble out a few short words, the speaker has long since moved on and I'm already lost. I think the better suggestion instead is to minimise distractions. Turn off wi-fi, open your favourite editor in full-screen mode, and avoid other applications. Apply the technology effectively instead of blaming it for the failure.

reddit_clone 12y ago
Why would you type word for word? You are better off using a recorder no? Being able to draw pictures, mind maps etc is a huge plus with paper based note taking.
wffurr 12y ago
It's not "advice", it's data reported from a study.
- binarycrusader 12y ago
  Maybe it isn't "advice", but it is subjective interpretation, since the results are an interpretation of a single study. Nor does the study appear to account for other factors, such as physical constraints. Obviously, in my particular case, I can't physically write for more than a few minutes at a time. And quite frankly, my handwriting has degraded to the point where it's barely legible even to myself unless I place a rather exhausting amount of effort into it.

withdavidli 12y ago

100% disagree from a personal standpoint. Loved taking notes via laptop for the pure reason it was faster and then I could actually participate in classroom conversation. All during my non-college years I was forced to take notes via pen and paper. I remember that I actually threw my pen down in history class one day because all the slides and not knowing what's actually going on. My teacher was perplexed, but understood my reasoning. I'm too busy scribbling down pages of notes, to comprehend anything until I read it again. This might mean I was just a poor note taker though. But having digital notes helped me much more, especially when searching or sections to study and having something much more legible. I can't be the only one who this is a case for. Remember most classes where the teacher asks a question and all but 2-3 students where rapidly copying notes instead of answering? Though this might be a heuristic error, but I remember this to be the rule instead of the exception.

quotient 12y ago

I agree that taking notes by hand allows me to focus better on the lecture, improves recall, and is generally more engaging. Yet I still choose to take notes on my laptop. Why? I first note that there are, in my opinion, two major types of lectures: there are those in which I only need to note down major ideas and in which it is more important to listen to the lecture, and those which move more quickly, making it necessary to note down everything, as a single omitted detail can cause hours of confusion later on. It is clear that for the first type of class, handwritten notes are just as good as those taken on a computer. There is little difference between the two, practically. For the second type of class, however, it is clearly easier to type notes. Most people type faster than they handwrite, and with reasonable proficiency in LaTeX, anyone is able to more or less type up an entire lecture of notes quite easily. But my reason for typing notes goes beyond that: the major issue I have with handwriting my notes is the inevitable accumulation of loose-leaf paper, and the ensuing confusion. I have only rarely actually managed to keep together an entire set of handwritten notes on a class. More rare is the case in which I actually manage to decipher my own handwriting later on, and rarest of all for me is actually going over handwritten notes. For some reason, I (virtually) never bother revisiting my handwritten notes. Organizationally, handwriting my notes is an enormous hassle that I cannot deal with. It just never works out. Electronic notes --- I keep a single .tex/.pdf for each class --- are much easier to maintain, organize, and browse later on. I can continue making revisions, add hyperlinks to relevant web resources, etc. Moreover, as they are (when you are sufficiently quick) easier to take than handwritten notes, it's also easier to thus create a complete set of notes that cover everything. I recognize that by transcribing all my lectures in real-time, I am probably missing out on some of the experience I would have if I were more immersed in my professors' lectures, although I feel that I should point out that despite taking notes electronically, I am quite immersed. After some time of practice, I'm able to listen and pay reasonably close attention to the lecture while I'm just typing as the professor speaks. I would probably be more immersed if I were not taking notes at all, or very few, on a piece of paper, but as it is, having a complete set of typeset notes is just far more valuable to me (not to mention the value to the other students, and occasionally even to the professor --- I often distribute my notes to others).

thorne 12y ago

I took all my notes in org-mode on a little Eee PC for my last two years and graduated summa. A representative quote from the article says, "research shows students who use laptops perform more poorly in classes." This is the standard statistician's fallacy of confusing individuals with Gaussian distributions. You are not a statistical amalgam; you are an individual. If you are too stupid to use a laptop as a tool without turning it into a distracting toy, then don't use one; but don't imply that everybody shares your malady.

dm2 12y ago

I found that taking notes by hand and then rewriting them on a computer works nicely. When rewriting the notes you can make them more condensed and leave out the parts that might be irrelevant, but the information is still available with the handwritten notes if ever needed. Also, just making a summary of notes or an outline is a good way to remember and organize them. Will kids in 20 years still be taking notes or will they just upload entire textbooks to their brains?

wffurr 12y ago

Today's Doonesbury is on this exact topic: http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2014/06/08 http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2014/06/0...

mercer 12y ago

I find my 'natural' retention is better with hand-written notes. I get a better 'general idea' and I organically remember certain parts of the lecture. However, I also end up However, my long-term retention is far better and deeper with digital notes, as they are not only indexed by spotlight (osx), but I drop them into DEVONthink which can relate text to other text through word frequency (and perhaps some other techniques). For example, I remember attending a lecture in my fourth year where the teacher's statements sparked a memory of some earlier lecture. I entered some search terms in these tools and immediately found both the notes I had made three years earlier as well as the original articles that they were based on. As a bonus, I ended up remembering more about both these lectures and the topic at hand. My ideal approach would be to take notes by hand and then transcribe them into my 'information systems'. Unfortunately, I often forget this crucial second step and end up forgetting where I left those original notes, or losing them entirely. The same principle applies to reading. I much prefer reading and annotating on paper, with all the 'drawing' freedom that gives me. But reading an ebook, exporting all my highlights and annotations, and then importing them into my 'systems' has been much more valuable in the long run. (for an idea of how someone actually uses spotlight, devonthink, or some other digital storage system effectively, this could be informative: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000230.html http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/0002...)

hrktb 12y ago

My personal take out from this article is that typing on a keyboard is usually seen as distracting and somewhat less natural than hand writing. I would think a signifiant number of students would already type faster than they can write, and wouldn't even need to continually look at the screen to take readable enough notes. At least that's was my experience in college after 3/4 years on IRC.

gatehouse 12y ago

Here is a mind-dump of my personal note taking strategies, which are highly context dependent [CCW]: (FWIW, I studied in an elite-ish engineering program, finished with a B average) Lecture: My number one goal is to stay awake, and listening to the words coming out of the professor's mouth. For a chalk and talk scenario, I use a notepad (that tears off at the top) and follow the blackboard and add commentary. If I can't process the information, I devolve to rote copying. This is the raw material of studying that I will attempt to understand later. For slides: ideally I will have a copy of the slides and take notes overtop. If I don't have the slides before but I will have them after, then I will try to understand the information and take extra notes. If I will never have the slides I'm unlikely to really benefit from the lecture, I might actually buy the textbook. Tutorial: If the TA is good I'll sit still and pay attention to the problem solving. Otherwise I won't attend. No notes. Reading: Highlighting and margin notes on the first pass, and then very very terse notes on paper on the second pass. I might end up with 10 pages of notes for a one semester course. Other non-student situations: For keeping track of actions taken from the command line I use a text file, emacs org-mode, and keep track of every command run, issues that I ran into, and commands used to verify. After a few run-throughs this may get boiled down to a shell script or some other type of program. I initially developed this habit working on EC2 before EBS existed, but now I deliberately destoy VMs and start from scratch often so I can be sure that I have a working process for getting up and running. For some type of programmatic data processing, I will usually use a python file. As I'm working I won't revise anything, I'll just keep adding on the bottom. I will then run it like "% python -i scratch.py" so I can examine failure at the prompt and continue to add the the file and re-run as I figure things out. For memory augmentation while thinking, for example for design work, I personally generally use letter (A4) size paper along with a pen, so I can spread out the paper on my desk while I get to grips with the problem. Typical to fill 3-10 pages. At this point I'm mainly using the computer just to retrieve reference material and the verify things. Ideally these notes get scanned later but I probably won't use them again. Stage 2 is to take the notes and try to distil it into a 1-page coherent top-down design. Sometimes I will cheat by using 11x17 notepad and a mechanical pencil, which allows an extravagant amount of detail an a single sheet. I currently have a fresh A3 170-page moleskine that I'm saving for some kind of massive project that needs this much space. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8862931956/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8862931956/ )