[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.
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