[HN Gopher] I've used all the notebooks ___________________________________________________________________ I've used all the notebooks Author : thcipriani Score : 195 points Date : 2022-04-30 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (tylercipriani.com) (TXT) w3m dump (tylercipriani.com) | Ambolia wrote: | Two small tips that got my GTD system going on paper: | | - Don't worry too much about having a perfect written system, I | always was worrying too much about having the perfect system and | this meant that I ended up not writing anything down because I | hadn't found the perfect place to put it. Don't be afraid of re- | writing things, think of re-writing as re-thinking, rather than | as having made a mistake that you are correcting. Your system is | an organism that evolves with as you keep thinking through the | things. | | - Nested lists are a nightmare to look at, and add too much | context that you don't want. Nested lists are ok for project | planning, brainstorming, and thinking. But keep nested lists away | from any page that you want to look at often. Better to have 10 | separated pages with 10 lists than 1 page with 10 sub-sections. | In general try to keep the system as dumbed down as possible, | because the point of having a written system is that you can look | at it when you don't feel like thinking and the system provides | very basic steps for your head to do (like pick one thing to do | from here, or remind me of all the people I am waiting for to | come back to me with answers, ...) | psnehanshu wrote: | I rarely take notes, be it on paper or on computer. It's just not | my thing. | kovek wrote: | I wish there was a way to always produce a notebook, without the | hassle of getting it out of the backpack without having to carry | it (uses 1 out of 2 hands). Same for the pen. I think finding a | surface can also be difficult. Anyone has ideas? | egypturnash wrote: | Perhaps you are ready for "the Hipster PDA": a small stack of | 3x5 notecards, kept together with a binder clip. Fits in your | pocket along with a pen. | | If you want to be a bit more upscale you can get pocket-sized | notebooks with a loop to hold a small pen. | smarx007 wrote: | I would go for one of the top-wirebound Europa notebooks [1] | They fit in a palm or place nicely on a lap. Any pen with a | retraction mechanism should work fine, I prefer Uniball Power | Tank. | | [1] https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/brands/clairefontaine/europa- | by... | jack_pp wrote: | Samsung Note? | mateo1 wrote: | I used to keep a couple pages of paper in my wallet and a small | pen. It wasn't that much of a hassle, but modern responsive | smartphones made this obsolete. At home I generally prefer | taking notes on paper. | beebmam wrote: | I used to use a notebook exactly like this, but then I became | fully remote. Now I use org-mode for everything in the exact same | way, except now it's structured and navigable and searchable! | RheingoldRiver wrote: | Why a reverse grid instead of a normal grid? | amelius wrote: | Whitelines, the company who owns the patent on it, formulates | it as "Dark lines distract, Whitelines don't". | | https://www.whitelinespaper.com/product/wirebound-notebooks-... | ohyoutravel wrote: | Personally it's easier on the eyes, like dark mode versus light | mode on electronics. | tandav wrote: | Moleskine is kinda missing :) | sgillen wrote: | Yea echoing the other commenter I was very disappointed when I | picked up a moleskin and found it felt like lower quality than | the cheaper non name brand I got on Amazon. | JasonFruit wrote: | Moleskine is expensive for what it is: high price, name with | reputation, medium-quality paper and binding. If you're happy | with the quality, you can get the same for less money by going | with whatever store-brand equivalent you can find, in my | opinion. | mbreese wrote: | The biggest thing going for Moleskine (which is what I used | when I kept paper notebooks) is availability and consistency. | They are widely available and you always know what you're | going to get. It may not be the next, but was certainly more | than adequate for my needs. And then I didn't need to tryout | half a dozen other options. | | I'm now trying out the Remarkable tablet, which has a lot of | the advantages of paper, but it's not quite there yet. It has | the paper feel for writing, and isn't half bad when it comes | to "ink quality". | | But where I think all electronic notebooks fail is data | locality. Meaning, when I'm searching for a note, in a | physical notebook, I know it's roughly halfway in, on the | left page, etc. As I thumb through the pages, I can tell | where I am in time. That experience just isn't quite there in | the electronic versions yet. | kergonath wrote: | Yeah I think that was sarcastic. Moleskine are well known for | being quite expensive and not too nice to write on anyway. | tuatoru wrote: | You must live in a notebook-rich environment. | | Where I live, Moleskines are indeed ridiculously expensive, | but every other available option has tissue-thin paper and | heavy black lines which obscure whatever I'm | writing/doodling. | | Bar one: Whitelines, which have very light grey pages with | white lines. But they're spiral wire bound, and I prefer | saddle stiched. | | All of the non-Moleskines have square corners which are a | design antifeature. | nunodonato wrote: | I was hoping to read some comments about digital note-taking | devices like the Remarkable or the SuperNote. I've been | considering jumping ship to one of those just to save the trees | :) SuperNote seems really cool in all the ways it allows you to | write and organize your notes. | benjiweber wrote: | I used these Leuchtturm1917 A5, dot-grid with fountain pens for | years. Still love paper and pen, but have switched almost | completely to the Remarkable2 for well over a year now. It's | close enough that the infinite-capacity notebook and syncing to | cloud are worth the slightly worse than paper experience. | baisq wrote: | And what pens do you use? Because that's just as important ;) | jonsen wrote: | https://www.jetpens.com/blog/The-Best-Pens-for-Note-Taking/p... | lqr wrote: | I take notes on the lowest-tier Strathmore 9x12" spiral-bound | sketchbooks. I strongly prefer totally blank paper for math and | diagrams. The paper is plenty high-quality, you can tear out | pages without ruining the appearance, and they are cheap. | | However, I don't view those notes as a permanent record. Anything | really important gets transcribed to LaTeX (math) or text files | (TO-DOs, etc.) | | The transcribing takes extra effort. I'm not sure it's worth it, | but it's a good opportunity to distill things to their essence | and double-check logic. My future self doesn't need to wade | through as many dead ends when looking back later. | pacaro wrote: | I buy Canson sketchbooks[1] and use them for everything, | although mostly drawing/sketching. I can blow through them | pretty quickly but buying them in 6-packs isn't bad | | The 5.5x8.5 format is portable enough, each notebook is 100 | pages, the paper isn't too lightweight, and they're serrated so | tearing out a page neatly is possible | | [1] https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00H3T4NOU/ | GavinAnderegg wrote: | OP mentions the Baron Fig Confidant II. I personally prefer the | Baron Fig Vanguard Softcover Notebook: | https://www.baronfig.com/accessories/vanguard-softcover-note... | | It has a sewn binding, lies flat more easily than the larger | Confidant II, and is more "disposable" (which the OP mentions | being a good thing, though I keep all my notebooks for later | reference). It also comes in a variety of sizes, though the | "Flagship" size is my go-to. I love the feeling of finishing a | notebook, and ones with fewer pages help me get there often. I | also find the soft-cover notebooks a bit easier to store than the | hardcover ones. | [deleted] | jerlam wrote: | I prefer disc-bound notebooks like Staples Arc, Levenger Circa, | or Rollabind: | | https://www.levenger.com/CIRCA-326/ABOUT-CIRCA-1233.aspx | | Arc is cheap and available in person at Staples. | | It combines the versatility of using your own paper, like a | three-hole-bunch binder, but with the reliability and compactness | of a wirebound notebook. Choose whatever paper you like, print | out your desired grid system, reorder pages, add tabs, etc. and | still have the same notebook. | | When you need to archive pages, you can remove them from the | notebook and throw them in a scanner. | | I'd say the initial cost of the notebook and punch is steep, but | not if you're comparing to $20 hardbound notebooks like Tomoe | River or Moleskine. | depingus wrote: | I just checked Staples website. The cheapest Arc refill is | $7.50 for 50 pages of notebook paper. That seems expensive to | me. | Arainach wrote: | It would be cool to see the author's notes on why they chose | their ratings. Their expectations roughly align with some of mine | but I don't know if their reasoning is the same. For instance, I | _love_ writing on the Rhodia spiral-bound book but the pages tear | out way too easily so I 've stopped buying them for that reason. | I also settled on Lechtturm. | hatware wrote: | I haven't used all the notebooks, but I am a terrible notetaker. | My issue is that too much in my life is digital, so adding | physical notebooks is avoided at all costs. The only time I | really used them was during job interviews (both as an | interviewer and interviewee). | | For me, an iPad/Apple Pencil was the solution to writing more | regularly. I wonder if OP has tried the digital route? | dwg wrote: | Passport memo from MUJI will be a great value for some. Modeled | after passport: small, compact, durable cover. 24 pages of great | quality blank, graph, or dot grid paper. Price is about $1 in | Japan. | | https://www.muji.com/jp/ja/store/cmdty/detail/4550182110340 | | Also available on Amazon (at a bit of a premium): | | https://www.amazon.com/MUJI-Passport-Notebook-24Sheets-Green... | ($10 but appears to include 3 notebooks so about $3.33 per | notebook) | ShroudedNight wrote: | I have a similar relationship with notes - the act itself being | the greater part of value. And I, too, have found myself becoming | more of a paper snob over time. | | The most satisfying notebooks I've found from a paper quality to | value perspective are these 'age-bag' notebooks from | Clairefontaine (90gsm A5 graph): | https://wonderpens.ca/collections/paper/products/center-clai... | | The ones I drool over though are the 'bonus' notebooks from The | Folio Society: | https://mirabiledictudotorg1.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/img... | throwanem wrote: | And he's yet to try a Mnemosyne, which is nice, because it means | he's got something pleasant to look forward to. | | My header format for work notebooks is an ISO8601 date followed | by title and then, when applicable, start and end times - these | come last, rather than adjacent to the date, because that way | it's easier to leave space for the end time if it's uncertain up | front. When the header line is complete, I highlight it with a | 6mm Pilot Parallel filled with liquid ink extracted by needle | from yellow Sharpie Accent highlighters - that nib size spans the | full space between lines in a Mnemosyne N195, and using it in a | Parallel rather than the original felt tip also keeps it from | smearing the Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu or Juro-jin with which I | ink my Decimo. | | I was surprised to see no mention of indexing in the original | article. In work notebooks I do this religiously, because while | hand-writing does help consolidate memory, an index of notes | makes them a much more durable reference tool and makes memory | consolidation much less of an issue in the first place. | | In my personal diary, I only head entries by date and time. I | don't always know up front what those will be about, so a title | doesn't fit, although I suppose I could perhaps usefully backfill | one on a finished entry - I haven't reconsidered my diary scheme | since shortly after I started the first volume in 2018, so | perhaps now's the time. | | In both cases, writing makes a wonderful tool for thought. It's | much easier to wrestle with a large and thorny idea when I don't | have to keep the whole thing in my head all at once. | biztos wrote: | I like the article and I love the Feinman quote, but -- isn't | this a somewhat short list of notebooks? | | I count more than nine types in my apartment right now, and as | far as I can tell I'm not particularly notebook-obsessed. | | Anyway, in my experience as someone who (I guess?) has used a lot | of notebooks for note-taking, writing, and drawing, the most | important thing is finding the right combination of pen(cil) and | notebook for the task. If you have a variety of tasks you may | need a variety of notebooks! And allow yourself the pleasure of | being an unabashed partisan for your favorites. | | For example: for taking class notes I use a little reporter-style | spiral notebook from iboom[0] and a Pilot Metropolitan with a | 0.38mm G2 ink, plus a random 0.7mm for when I have to write | things to show the teacher on video. For homework I use the same | Pilot with a larger Muji notebook[1]. But then for walking around | and taking notes in a cafe or bar, I usually have an | indestructible Kokuyo[2] in my bag, and a Mitsubishi pen that | goes well with it but any gel pen would do. When I'm not | expecting to take notes, I usually still have a little craft | notebook like Field Notes or similar; and when I'm doing focused | brainstorming or writing I usually use an A4 drawing pad, which | arguably is/isn't a notebook depending on the size and binding. | At which point I am free to bust out the Tombow Zoom and the | mechanical pencils. | | But until a few years ago I spent a solid decade swearing by the | Hahnemuhle Tradition[3] spiral sketchbook for all things, paired | with a Uni-Ball Eye Micro which fits inside the spiral. | Absolutely worth a try if you like a toothy writing experience. I | stopped using them mostly because I stopped keeping my diary on | paper and started typing it straight into the void, er, cloud. | | So far it looks to me like for "paper culture" it's Japan > Rest- | of-Asia > France > Germany > Rest-of-Europe > USA. But I'm sure | that's an incomplete picture. | | [0]: iBoom might only be available in Thailand, I can't find the | company online, but for instance: | https://www.officemate.co.th/en/search/iboom | | [1]: | https://www.muji.us/collections/notebook/products/recycled-p... | | [2]: https://mykokuyo.com/products/notebooks | | [3]: https://www.boesner.com/tradition-spiral-skizzenblock-10349 | JasonFruit wrote: | I think it's possible to get so excited about the tool you're | using that you forget its purpose. I have to watch that myself | --- and I believe the writer here is teetering on that edge. I | try to hold myself to a) having a separate notebook for each | purpose for which I'm using one, b) having it marked | appropriately for its use, and c) having it be handsome. (I fear | I've displayed my failure to restrain myself.) | kergonath wrote: | > having it be handsome | | I like the utilitarian look of the classic Rhodia. And I love | writing on them, of course. | | I find nerding about with notebooks and fountain pens a nice | change compared to work days, when I have to nerding about HPC | and text editors. | franklampard wrote: | This is cool but personally I have to use digital note keeping | apps. | | With years of exploring, I found VS Code to the best for me. | sp332 wrote: | Multiple text files in a single folder, or one big file? How do | you search or link notes? | bitexploder wrote: | I have been really into iPad pro and Concepts. It is really cool | to think, journal, note take, whiteboard, design mechanical | things, design software etc. all in one functional easy to use | piece of software. Used to be really into notebooks but I just | can'. | nice_byte wrote: | i've been using traveler's notebook for the past 2-3 years. i | like the fact that it's refillable, and you can even have | multiple separate notebooks for different things within the same | binding. | ces_ wrote: | As an avid note taker, also in ISO8601 format, "Badly Made Books" | make some of the best notebooks I've ever used. | | As a bonus, their collections of notebooks range from 75-99% | recycled. | | https://www.badlymadebooks.com/ | prepend wrote: | I used to like the hardcover grid reporter moleskine and used it | for a long time because it fit in my front pocket and took the | least space on a table next to my laptop. But moleskine changed | paper and got thinner and the reporter grid got harder and harder | to find. | | I like leuchtterm's dot but wish they had grid and reporter style | so they would flip up. I almost liked the rhodia as the paper was | nicer but it wouldn't open and stay flat so you had to hold it | open while writing. | kmstout wrote: | As a lefty, I find that the reporter's notebooks are ideal for | carrying out in the world. The binding stays out of my way, and | every pair of facing pages forms a long column that works | nicely for notes, snippets of code, and shopping lists. | derevaunseraun wrote: | Why exactly would someone spend $10-20 on a notebook with fewer | pages than the $3 one you can buy at the department store? Like | you're just paying over 3x the cost for something that's | essentially a commodity | | It just sounds like people putting special branding on | commodities and writing up shitty blog posts as some cool trick | to make quick $$$ | | But hey, maybe I'm a buzzkill spoiling all the fun the shills are | having | egypturnash wrote: | Better paper that bleeds less and is less likely to get ripped | through by a sharp mechanical pencil. Better binding - spiral | notebooks are super cheap but if they live in your bag a while | the spiral starts getting crushed and tries grabbing ahold of | anything else in your bag, or the books next to it when it's | filled and on the shelf. Hardbound books can make it a little | easier to write in them sometimes. | | Also having a really pretty notebook that looks cool can be a | small source of pleasure. I like to use ones with covers styled | after elaborately-bound old books, I feel like a wizard taking | notes in their grimoire every time I take them out, and that's | worth something IMHO. | | Surely there is something in your life where you don't buy the | cheapest, shittiest version of it possible, but spring for the | nice version of. Why do you make this choice? Probably some | combination of the pricier one working better, being more | durable, looking cooler, and acting as a status symbol. | ShroudedNight wrote: | The ones I can buy at the department store have lousy paper | that will bleed through multiple signatures if I were to write | in it with my fountain pens. They will also cost me | significantly more than $3. | jl6 wrote: | Some years ago, I was on the margins of notebook enthusiasm, but | never went all-in, because I quickly discovered that while I | really enjoyed the physicality of notebooks, I came to dislike | their pre-digital limitations. I still prefer the free-form | capability to mix text and drawing and color and scribbles that | pen or pencil on paper offers, but I then scan the finished pages | into the computer. | | As a result, my favorite notebook is now a pad of A4 paper with a | good weight, ruled, and perforated so I can easily detach pages | and feed them through the scanner. | | Content warning for the following paragraph. | | I then destroy the originals. | [deleted] | ohyoutravel wrote: | I switch between field notes for every day notetaking because | they can fit in a pocket and are basically disposable but high | quality and are allowed in areas where electronics cannot go, | and my remarkable for places where electronics are allowed or | for more long form that syncs to my computer / Obsidian. | RugnirViking wrote: | I wonder whether tapping out Morse code would show even greater | memory than writing with a pen? Presumably there's nothing | specific about the act of writing itself, rather the slowness of | it means you have to summarize more rather than record what's | being said, and summarizing requires greater understanding | kabdib wrote: | A cow-orker of mine was maintaining several sizes of notebooks. | "I use small notebooks for small ideas," he said, "This medium | notebook [holding up a 8x11" sketch pad] for medium-size ideas. | At home I have a notebook as big as a coffee table -- it's still | unused because I haven't had an idea that big yet." | | [Lechtturm dot-grid notebooks are fantastic] | 323 wrote: | I remember when I accidentally stumbled upon a $100 A5 notebook, | in a regular department store, but located in a finance hub. It | had no obvious feature to justify the price, no leather, no gold | leaf or anything weird. Just a good quality notebook. | | It was quite a visceral shock to realize that obviously some | people do buy them. Again, it was a regular upmarket shop, not | some sort of billionaires exclusive hangout. | ShroudedNight wrote: | This was in currency more-or-less equivalent to the US Dollar? | Was it made of vellum!? Even as a paper snob, $100 for a | notebook elicits a visceral reaction. | xbryanx wrote: | So pleased to see the Leuchtturm 1917 dotted grid at the top of | this list. It's been my go-to notebook for the last few years. It | comes with some nice stickers for labeling so that you can find | past notebooks on the shelf. Lots of colors are easily available | on Amazon. | | I wrap my latest notebook in a Coal Creek leather cover to look | all fancy (and hold my phone and pen). | https://www.coalcreekleather.com/collections/a5 | soylentgraham wrote: | Same! Im about to finish a very packed notebook of 6 years of | stuff, I love the dots, and will be grabbing an identical one | next | allenu wrote: | The Leuchtturm is my go-to as well for the last few years. I'm | also glad they are very easy to source. | | I like to have mine around for jotting ideas down and drawing | diagrams. I don't have a system or anything. I think I used to | be far more prescriptive about what I put in it but now it's | just a playground for my ideas and that suits me really. I | carry around everywhere so it's ready to be used. | vhodges wrote: | I've used both Leuchtturm1917 a5 (dotted) and Maruman Mnemosyne | N104 Special Memo Notebook - B5 dotted. | | I like the maruman for the spiral binding (flat, less footprint | when folded over) and I find the paper on the Maruman to have | less bleed through but I wish it came with more pages. I also | like the slightly bigger pages the b5 gives me over the a5. I | still like my Leuchturm too but don't use it as much lately. | bluenose69 wrote: | I'm partial to Rhodia No 16 dotPad. It takes ink well, without | much bleed through the page or spread across the page. For | reference, I use a variety of inks and fountain pens, with | Pelikan-4001 and Waterman-graduate-allure being my go-to | combination. | | I prefer the dots to either grids or lines, because they provide | enough guidance without getting in the way. | | The spiral binding is convenient, and the back cover is stiff | enough to use on a lap. | | The pages are not numbered, but I do that myself, with yyyy-mm-dd | and a title at the top-right of any new set of notes, and circled | numbers 1, 2, ..., on successive pages of that topic. | | Not that anybody asked... what is it about note-taking that makes | people yammer so? | stock_toaster wrote: | Same here. After trying many types of notebooks and paper, I | find the Rhodia dotpad paper to be very pleasant, and it works | well with the other tools I like to write with: | | * tactile turn pen (bullet slim w/Pilot G2 0.7mm refill) | | * rotring 600 mechanical pencil 0.5mm | | * staedtler pigment liner 0.4mm | [deleted] | lvl102 wrote: | I am surprised no mention of the gold standard: Tomoe River | 52gsm. I've tried nearly everything in the market during the | pandemic and they are simply the best particularly for fountain | pens. | fma wrote: | If you go to the Dollar Tree - they have tiny composition | notebooks that fit well in your back pocket. A pack for $1 - or I | guess, $1.25 now that they raised the prices. I carry a pen that | fits on my keychain. If I'm out and about I can jot something | down. If I use my phone to take notes, they never get looked at. | The act of taking it out of my pocket reminds me if I wrote | something that I need to follow up when I'm home. | | At home/office I have rocket book. I don't use the app, though. | Throughout the workday I jot down notes. At the end of the | day/week I will consolidate anything important to the front of | the notebook and erase the pages. | | I have an ipad, but taking notes with the pen just doesn't feel | right for whatever reason. I've yet to find a solution I like for | longer term notes (i.e. when reading a book). | bloopernova wrote: | A4 hardback Leuchtturm square dotted notebook is the best I've | ever used. A real joy! | jbjbjbjb wrote: | I just buy store brand or brands aimed at students. I obsess over | a lot of things but I don't get expensive notebooks. I'm just not | paying silly money for a block of paper to write throwaway notes. | BeetleB wrote: | Most student targeted books don't handle fountain pen ink well. | Occasionally I find a cheap notebook that does, but normally | you have to pay $7+. | enriquto wrote: | Rhodia and Clairefontaine are cheap (the notebooks with | simple covers) and they are the best for fountain pen writing | without feathering. Only surpassed by expensive japanese | paper. | bch wrote: | I'm just dipping my toe into the "expensive Japanese paper" | (TomoeRiver, Midori) and I think the experience (while | writing, and ink-fastness thereafter) might be worth it | imo. | smarx007 wrote: | Maybe "throwaway notes" is the part that makes a difference. | After I finish a notebook, I usually sit down and fill out the | table of contents for which I normally allocate 2 or 4 pages at | the beginning, because I will refer to those notes in the | future. | me_me_mu_mu wrote: | I've got maybe 15-20 moleskine notebooks laying around. I love | taking notes and I use a simple cross classic ball pen. | buescher wrote: | I loved the Rhodia meeting books until I got one whose pages | (they're perforated) all fell out. The paper is nice otherwise | and the format is great. | | A blaze orange notebook - they are available from other brands | too - is incidentally very easy to find and hard to leave behind. | phil21 wrote: | I enjoy taking notes. A colleague sent me this link, so I'll post | here to amuse him. | | My favorite notebook is the National Brand "Engineering and | Science Notebook" - which has become my go-to. [0] | | I like to diagram, so having the reverse page be graph paper | makes it easier for me. I also prefer spiral bound since they | tend to hold up better in travel, but that's purely subjective. | | [0] - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E69X52 | electricair wrote: | The author could create a digital notebook system using any of | his notebooks with Paper Website[1] | | [1] https://paperwebsite.com | lunchladydoris wrote: | If you want to extend your journey into stationery, I highly | recommend the Erasable podcast [0]. It reignited my love for wood | pencils. | | Stationery is such a fun and relatively inexpensive rabbit hole | to fall into (as long as you steer clear of the bonkers fountain | pens). | | [0] https://www.erasable.us/ | maleldil wrote: | I've used paper notebooks in the past (also for thinking), but I | struggled with finding my notes again. With a digital system | (even just plaintext files), you can use search or grep or | something, and find all relevant notes that contain your query. | | I used a few paper notebooks to write down my thoughts during my | Master's, and it was always difficult to find where I wrote about | a particular experiment, paper, or anything that wasn't write- | only. I would figure out when I wrote about that and go through | the dates, but it's nowhere as convenient as grepping by an | author name. This made me switch to digital notes (in Obsidian) | for my current job. | | How do you deal with this? I'd love to get back to paper notes | again. | hzhou321 wrote: | Only use one notebook at a time. Always write down a date | first, on every page if your notes spans to another page. Write | down your notes sequentially. Had a diagram in the middle of | the page? Continue notes at next page unless you are annotating | the diagram. It's much easier to find things when there is a | single media in linear form. Having mixed notes is fine. Having | a linear order is more important. I would write down my | shopping list if I am think of that in the middle of figuring | out an algorithm, draw a box around my shopping list, and | continue with my algorithm notes. | throwanem wrote: | Also, number all the pages except the last two, which don't | need numbers because they're where you will keep an index by | topic. | | Even across multiple volumes, that index will serve the same | purpose for your notes as it does for a database, this after | all being whence RDBMS designers borrowed the term: an index | allows you to perform lookups in sublinear time. | lancesells wrote: | I make an index of my notes at the back of the notebook but | then do it again digitally. That way I have digital search for | physical items. If my notes were purely text I could probably | scan but I prefer navigating a physical book than a PDF or | folder of files. | FastMonkey wrote: | I've gone back and forth a bit between electronic and paper | notes. For me, electronic just can't beat the physical location | of paper. I know where in space a particular note is so it's | easier for me to hone in on it. I sketch and do a lot of math | and there's just no friction less way to do that in an app. I | think I tend to remember concepts graphically too, so searching | with text doesn't feel as natural. | | Of all the note taking apps I've used though, obsidian is | easily the best. The graph they have for connecting notes | together is just great. And, I like that their storage system | is just plain text files, so long after obsidian is gone, I'll | still be able to look at them if I need to. | CPLX wrote: | There's a different experience of writing longhand that yields | to a certain kind of brainstorming that I like quite a bit. | | I ended up buying a Remarkable 2 which is an e-paper writing | tablet. Sort of an expensive impulse purchase, bought off an | Instagram ad of all things. I love it and carry it with me all | the time. | | The software is fine, not great but it works. The writing | experience is excellent though, it's as close to the UX of | actually writing in a notebook as I can imagine and I | definitely am happy with the purchase. | chrisweekly wrote: | I still use my bullet journal (moleskine paper + graphgear | pencil), and also use Obsidian (switched from Roam abt a year | ago), and have a reMarkable 2 eink tablet -- which I _might_ | try using as a digital replacement for the bullet journal. I'm | sometimes bothered by the inefficiency / partial redundancy in | my system's current iteration... OTOH the resiliency is great. | | My flavor of bullet journal makes it reasonably easy to find | stuff thanks to numbered pages, a structure that includes | dedicated pages separate from daily notes, and a comprehensive | index. | throwanem wrote: | > a reMarkable 2 eink tablet -- which I _might_ try using as | a digital replacement for the bullet journal | | Be aware that the software on those is so limited as to make | indexing of any kind entirely impossible. | crowbahr wrote: | Based on my research the onyx boox note air 2 is a better | integrated solution for synchronized note taking | mbreese wrote: | My view is that less software is better, when it comes to | note taking. My frustration with the RM2 is that I really | don't see much of a benefit to taking "digital notes", | aside from the fact that I can have multiple "notebooks" | with me at all times. All of the electronic features (OCR, | searching, indexing), aren't helpful enough to make the | switch. But I do like the RM2, so long as you aren't | looking for much software help. | | I'm personally still a bit on the fence for my RM2, but | leaning that direction. Having multiple logical notebooks | to keep meeting separate is pretty handy. | snidane wrote: | Nitpick about date formats. | | 2013-02-27 is the current standard, but more so as a result of | "this is how we've done things" and not "this is the best way to | do it". The hyphens make the notation ambiguous with | substraction, therefore in programming languages dates are quoted | and represented as strings, which in turn get passed to a parsing | function. - to_date('2022-03-27') - | datetime.strptime("2022-03-27", "%Y-%m-%d") | | The obvious alternative is to use an unambigous notation from the | list such as dot notation. 2022.03.27 doesn't collide with | floating point number notation, nor with ipv4 notation, nor any | arithmetic operation and thus can be used to represent dates in | programming languages directly - without quotation and without | the need to stringly type them. | | It's one of those many examples where "best practices" really | only mean "current common practices". | Ambolia wrote: | When writing on paper I personally like something like | "Saturday 30th of April 2022", or some abbreviation of it, in | addition to global context it also adds some weekly context | that can be nice when trying to remember when you did | something. | | And some seasonal context from the month, like 06 doesn't bring | many associations to my head, June tells me it was probably | hot, and the type of atmosphere and activities going on around | at the time. | mikotodomo wrote: | The units get smaller from let to right, which is what you | expect. The American system doing things like month/day/year is | unintuitive and causes ambiguity, but if it was done in an | intuitive way in the first place (day/month/year), there would | be none. | layer8 wrote: | > The hyphens make the notation ambiguous with substraction | | In Lisp they wouldn't, and in statically typed languages it | probably wouldn't be a problem either, as the compiler would | tell you that you can't use a date as a number. | | On the other hand, the need for date literals in program code | is rare enough that it likely doesn't warrant introducing a | dedicated syntactic form. | kelseyfrog wrote: | This is why I notate using s-exprs. | dctoedt wrote: | Example please? (Non-programmer here; I'm sorta familiar | with s-exprs but can't quite picture what you have in | mind.) | kelseyfrog wrote: | (joke my-comment) | 7thaccount wrote: | In Lisp, operators and function calls are all prefix, so | this would be subtraction: (- 10 5) I think (it's been | awhile lol). A hyphen anywhere else wouldn't be confused | with subtraction. This is just a guess though. | buescher wrote: | I got in the habit years ago of writing dates "27 February | 2013" - recommended by some guidelines for lab notebooks as the | least ambiguous. | hammock wrote: | Dd mm yy would make more sense to me on a physical notepad, | since the more relevant info comes first, and you don't have to | worry about sorting | OJFord wrote: | To me too, but I'll write yyyy mm dd if it stops Americans | writing mm dd yy! | | In fairness, they do _say_ it in that order too, so on some | level perhaps that really is 'the more relevant' (or | natural) to them. | scbrg wrote: | Not that it matters much, since few programming languages will | have date and IPv4 literals, but the form you propose _does_ | collide with IPv4 notation. | | IPv4 addresses in numbers-and-dots notation can contain one, | two or three dots. | | 10.11.12 would mean Nov 12, year 10. _Or_ the IPv4 address you | 'd perhaps be more tempted to write as 10.11.0.12. | | Perhaps we can put the pile of poo emoji to good use? | OJFord wrote: | Dots don't allow it not being a full date though, e.g. the | month 2022.04 is indistinguishable from the number two thousand | and twenty-two point zero four. | gregmac wrote: | > 2013-02-27 is the current standard, but more so as a result | of "this is how we've done things" and not "this is the best | way to do it". | | That may be, but it's also codified as ISO 8601 [1], so that's | a strong reason not to use a non-standardized format. | | > The hyphens make the notation ambiguous with substraction, | therefore in programming languages dates are quoted and | represented as strings | | If you're hard-coding a date in code, you have other choices. | You can use a UNIX timestamp (uint). You can create a Date | object directly, eg: Date Created = new | Date(2022, 04, 30); | | I don't know of any languages where Date is a primitive type | (are there any?) so having a literal notation - which I think | is what you're advocating - doesn't really make sense: there | has to be an allocation or conversion anyway. This is in | contrast to actual primitive types like float, int, char, etc | where most languages do have a literal way to express those in | source. | | If you're reading a date from user configuration, you need to | parse at some point anyway. Otherwise, store dates as | serialized date objects and in your database as date-type | columns (or as UNIX timestamps, if date isn't an available | type). | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 | snidane wrote: | kdb and similar systems have had it for years. | | https://code.kx.com/q4m3/2_Basic_Data_Types_Atoms/#253-date-. | .. | | Float is an imprecise transformation from text to a binary | fixed size representation. I don't see how floats would be | considered a native type while datetime types not. | | Having it non-native while the option exists seems to be like | a voluntary torture. But it makes sense considering community | bubbles surrounding programming languages and not bridging | the gaps between them. What can be a 100 lines of Java can be | expressed in 20 of Python can be expressed in 5 lines of a | data language. | almog wrote: | At least for myself, using some of the fancier 80/90 gsm sheets | in that list (Clairfontaine for one) only makes sense if I'll be | taking my notes with a fountain pen (which can be a lot of fun!), | but with rollerball/ballpoint I'd get the same experience from | the cheaper Rhodia options, that would probably be just fine at | preventing bleedthrough (some of the fancier papers can be really | good at preventing feathering in just how well they render | present some inks). | kcindric wrote: | I really like using notebooks and writing my thoughts, helps with | ADHD and with grounding when I'm in full panic mode. I feel I | think more clearly and structured when my thinking is paired with | writing. | | I also _love_ good quality notebooks but I feel guilty when using | them for everyday scribbles like meeting notes. It feels like | sacrilege. | djbeadle wrote: | I've had some luck by scribbling on the first page of every new | notebook. Subconsciously it is now "ruined" and safe for every | day use. | kzrdude wrote: | I use notebooks for thinking at work but I've noticed I'm only | ever really making progress when talking to a colleague. Now | that helps untangle thoughts and get from ideas into an | actionable plan. Even the notebook doesn't really help me with | that. | throwanem wrote: | I dedicate the very last page of all my work notebooks - | Mnemosyne N195As, so very nice indeed - entirely to doodles and | scribbles, both because with fountain pens sometimes you need a | sheet like that, and because sometimes a _person_ needs a sheet | like that. | enriquto wrote: | Why only a single page? Every other page in my notebooks is | dedicated to doodling and cool smeared fountain pein | inkdrops! | throwanem wrote: | If I'm doodling in a work notebook, that's an indication | that I need to either re-engage with the meeting or leave | it, and perhaps also have a quiet word afterward to whoever | was ostensibly running it. | | If your fountain pen blots, consider a different ink - | Western pens have larger nibs and feeds than Japanese, so | tend to be very wet when filled with thinner Japanese inks. | | It could also be due to rough handling, and probably is if | you tend to find ink on the inside of the cap and the | outside of the section - and thence of course on your | fingers. | | You might also write with too heavy a hand, which tends to | splay the tines of the nib; this is especially likely if | you tend to see lines that don't properly fill with ink, | since too wide a space between the tines will fail to | sustain the capillary action that draws ink smoothly from | the feed to the tip. Gold nibs are especially vulnerable | here; if you're new to fountain pens, consider switching | for a while to a steel nib, which will feel somewhat | rougher but write just as well and be much more forgiving | of mistakes as you learn how correctly to use this type of | tool. | | If none of these apply, the. perhaps the pen just needs to | be flushed and cleaned, which is something worth doing with | a fountain pen after every few fills at most, or between | different inks and especially different brands - not just | for color mixing reasons, but also because some inks when | mixed exhibit chemical behaviors that can lead to clogging. | And just generally, a well-maintained pen will write much | more neatly and reliably than one that hasn't been looked | after in a while. | 0xCAP wrote: | Oh so im not the only one? Some I love so much Im still waiting | on the right occasion to use. | podoco wrote: | my issues with notebooks is the bleed-through. i like thick dark | pens but they always bleed-through if you dont get a super heavy | weight paper, and those are a lot more expensive. whats the | solution, just not write on the backside of the paper? | carterschonwald wrote: | Yup lectchurm (I can't spell it ever ) is my personal favorite | too. Numbered pages and dot grid for the win! | Tao332 wrote: | soapdog wrote: | If any one here would like to see yet another notebook, I | recommend checking out Traveller's Company Notebooks. I wrote a | bit about them in: | | https://andregarzia.com/2022/01/got-a-passportsize-traveller... | hzhou321 wrote: | > "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-... A | hard cover and thick ring has become a necessity for me. | weaksauce wrote: | 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. | throwaway81523 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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. :) | rowanajmarshall wrote: | 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. | karaterobot wrote: | I remember buying my first Moleskine notebook in college. It was | my first exposure to "fashionable office supplies", a foreign | concept to me growing up. It was a super nice object. In fact it | was so nice, I didn't want to use it to just take notes in class, | because what a waste. I also didn't want to use it to just | scribble personal notes and todo lists in, because what a waste. | In the end, I never wrote anything in that notebook at all: what | a waste. | | Now I tend to view fashionable office supplies as productivity | fetish items. It's easy to geek out on that stuff, but does a | better notebook make me more productive? Seems to make me less | productive, if history is an indicator. | | Yeah, I will occasionally find myself reading reviews of | immaculately designed mechanical pencils, or minutely engineered | Japanese scissors. But I try not to lose sight of the advantages | cheap, lousy stuff has too: disposable, easy to replace, low | barrier to use. These qualities are also valuable. | adamm255 wrote: | I still have my first college Moleskine which also was | something way "too good" to waste so has about 20 pages used, | the rest are blank! | | I now use free vendor notebooks from events and random pens. | And a PS2 flip notebook for daily to-dos. | sanderjd wrote: | I think the biggest advantage to buying my own stuff is | standardization. Nothing drives me crazier than a bunch of | schwag notebooks of different shapes and sizes all jumbled in | a drawer. | jwdunne wrote: | I've done this too. Quite the contrast to my disorganised | life. I have two types: lined and square paper. Both | hardback and book bound (find ring binds don't play nice | with me and I lose pages). Get the exact same ones each | time, apart from a few old ones whilst I was in my | discovery phase. The lined ones come in a stack of 5 so | always have one ready to go. | | Also use a single type of pen: a black staedtler fine | liner. They in a box of 10. | sanderjd wrote: | Right! The "exact same ones each time" is way more | important to me than which ones. Or rather, the exact | same shape; I experiment with dotted vs. lined vs. grid | (though I've pretty much entirely decided on dotted at | this point). | sph wrote: | I have bought a nice leather bound notebook, the one you sit | down with a cup of coffee to write something important. I never | use it. | | I instead just got myself a cheap detective-style notepad I can | keep in my pocket to write down all the crap the comes to mind, | everywhere I am, even while standing up. That's exactly what I | need. | dijit wrote: | The trick is to buy a nice leather sleeve for a standard size | of notebook, then buy cheaper inserts. | | You might find that you enjoy the quality of paper of other | notebooks, but it gets you over that "this notebook is too | nice for my random thought"-block. | unethical_ban wrote: | Once you get over the "don't use them" part, they're exquisite | to use. Pens, I tend to agree that I like being cheap on them | so I can lose them and replace easily. Notebooks, I don't lose | because the value is the data. | lwkl wrote: | Moleskin Notebooks are overpriced trash. The paper is way too | thin and most pens I use bleed through. | thomas wrote: | Yes, but if you use the right pen it helps a lot! Good | reference: https://unsharpen.com/what-are-the-best-pens-for- | moleskine-n... | maskerade wrote: | Hahaha, it's good to read this and see its not just me. I also | have an unused Moleskine notebook and numerous other 'Nice' | looking notebooks that I never write in as I feel it would just | be a waste. | | I just go for a cheap and cheerful one that I am happy to write | any old nonsense in | egypturnash wrote: | It really varies with the person. Personally I _like_ using | nice notebooks with ornate covers based on old books, with | metallic ink accents. Like this: | https://www.paperblanks.com/en/product/journals/viola/pb8116... | | It makes me feel like a freakin' wizard to pull them out and | write in them. It's great. Bonus wizard points for using a nice | fountain pen. | rzzzt wrote: | There is a webcomic that mirrors your experience: | https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/nice-notebook/ | javert wrote: | I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on the Zettlekasten | system from people who have actually used it. | diiaann wrote: | I love the Leuchtturm but I find that I too like something more | disposable. My preference now is the Kokuyo Dot Grid which you | can get in a spiral bound or loose pages. | | See: | https://stationerymanor.com/collections/kokuyo/products/koku... | jseliger wrote: | So have I, and I like this one: | https://jakeseliger.com/2013/01/05/product-review-rhodia-web..., | although portability is a key concern. Field Notes are also good, | albeit less durable. | commondream wrote: | Author didn't mention Midori notebooks, and they're by far my | favorite. The paper is nice to write on, and the blank covers | give space for documenting what it's for. Pairs great with my | favorite pen, my Ohto Horizon. | powersurge360 wrote: | I am _shocked_ that Midori isn't more represented in these | comments. The lay-flat binding is amazing, the grid is pretty | cool, and the indication at the top for the grids is great. | Plus the price is about right compared to other premium | notebooks. | | You miss out on pockets and multiple bookmarks but you can pair | it with a Kokuyo systemic notebook cover to cover all the | bases. | yeetsfromhellL2 wrote: | The author misses Rite in the Rain, which makes my favorite | notebooks, they're printed with heavy, acid-free, waterproof | paper. Pairs great with a Fisher pen cartridge (waterproof, | pressurized ink made for writing in almost any condition). | | As for dating, I like to do something a little different; it's | still ISO8601 but with a slight twist. Each page top has the date | in basic form (eg, 20220430) and each note on that page has a | timestamp to describe that note and a title for the first line | (eg: "T1234 Groceries"), followed by the note body below, a | little like a git commit message. This allows me to link between | notes by enclosing the date and time stamp in pointy brackets. To | save some ink when linking, I use the date at the top of the page | for context. If my page top is dated 20220430, and I want to link | to a note from the 23rd at T0631, I write it like <23T0631>. | Since the year and month are the same as the context I'm in, I | don't bother writing those. I don't use page numbers at all. | | Some other notebook habits I have: I like to use the first page | for my contact info if anyone finds my notebook (and maybe offer | a reward). The next page is for goals I'd like to work toward | during the anticipated lifespan of that book. I also like to | create a weekly index. When I've filled the notebook, I create an | index of index pages on the very last page. If I wait to index | the entire thing when the book is filled, I usually don't. Also, | I use the last few pages to create monthly calendars. I fill in | dates on them with letters (A, B, C...) for an event, which I | reference on the back side of the page, either with a short | description or a link to the timestamp I wrote down event | information on. Finally, after filling a book, I write the range | of timestamps that book covers in the spine so I can quickly find | notes in the future. | psnehanshu wrote: | You are way too disciplined, which I can never be. More power | to you. | yeetsfromhellL2 wrote: | If you just do the date at each page header and timestamp | each note to enable linking, your notes will get much easier | to deal with. I actually started doing this because I'm | fairly undisciplined and generally pretty disorganized. | neilv wrote: | I also like Rite In The Rain notebooks with Fisher Space Pens. | | My only complaint about RITR is that the _feel_ of the paper | seems a bit odd. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-30 23:00 UTC)