Am I the only one that does write down stuff in paper to realize that I never come back to it at a later point? In fact I just throw away all my notes after a few weeks. The only reason I write down stuff is because:

it "liberates" my mind. I can't keep all the details in my brain. Example: designing a system. I can see the system in my mind but at some point I need to dump it to paper, so I can keep thinking about it. The paper, with the design, is discarded later on... the next time I need to continue working on that system, I start from scratch (although it's way easier than the first time). At some point I have the whole thing so memorized that I can start working on it without having to check the notes. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but "it works".

Also, my notes look terrible bad. I don't even care about my handwriting at that point; I only care about "move stuff from brain to paper".

What a lovely piece of writing. It’s good advice.

Index / record cards and a binder clip work wonders for me. I used to write in a notebook but the anxiety of losing it is real, especially when reaching the end of a notebook filled with precious knowledge.

80% of read-usage was for either the current day or the previous day. Deeper history is very useful but often done at my desk. You can keep a rolling N day history with a binder clip. Having pieces of card is very useful too. Rip em up, fold em, flick em when you need to give an impromptu demonstration of how TCP works*.

Get a Fujitsu ScanSnap too: digitising index cards is much easier than digitising bound notebooks, and it now means you can access your note taking history from any device — essential for all the notes that didn’t get converted into project manager tasks but which need to be referenced, retrospectively.

Paper only works for private task tracking so it won’t work for everything but it’s the best tool for the top of the getting-things-done funnel.

*I am a high school CS teacher, former FAANGSWE.

I like pen and paper for organizing thoughts but find that the expensive notebooks and fancy fountain pens and elaborate formatting "systems" just interfere with the core value of pen and paper notes: there are no rules.

I have a stack of discarded printer paper on my desk. Rough drafts I've printed to proofread, that sort of thing. I make notes and doodles on the back side of these pages, using whatever pen or pencil is handy. If I decide they are worth keeping, I can use a three-hole punch and put them in a binder. Mostly they end up getting shredded and recycled.

There are cases where using a text editor makes more sense. Working through the installation of a piece of software, for example. Much easier to copy/paste from the terminal (or just use 'script' to record it and edit later) than to transcribe shell commands onto paper.

I think that ultimately any paper task tracking method that cannot be summarized within one or two pages of text is turning into that thing you do to procrastinate on actually doing shit, instead of a useful tool to help you decide what you want to do. Once you pass the preamble of "other ways I used to track tasks and why they don't work for me", this method passes that test. :)

Her method looks a lot like the old Bullet Journal method from before it turned into a major part of its creator's business affairs and became the sprawling ecosystem of rules and templates and books and discounts on paper/pens and Instgram influencers sharing the layouts they spent several hours on painting that is "BuJo".

Personally I prefer my variant of the Pomodoro Method from before it underwent a similar transformation; breaking one to-do up by the number of half-hour time units I expect it to take works well for me. Whatever works though. A nice notebook and pen work for me, too. Especially since I persuaded a few who had been bemoaning the excessive sizes of their fountain pen collections to send me some very nice perfectly-functional-but-unloved pens.

Lately I've been writing a lot in paper notepads and I've favored pens over pencils. I don't remember where I heard this idea originally, but there's something about using a pen which makes you grow a bit more comfortable with accepting that errors and mistakes will always happen but you can take action later on to correct those mistakes. With a pencil you often erase your mistakes and pretend they never happened. You're a flawed human, not a flawless writing machine. Expecting perfection from yourself at all times is very limiting. It's better to fill up a notebook with a mix of good ideas and mistakes than to leave it blank.

I keep thinking I’ll like paper, but I just don’t. A few years ago I started keeping a daily journal: not so much a diary with today I feel… but a record like changed the van’s oil. Drove the kid to camp. Called Mom.. [0]

I was using Drafts on my iPhone as a kind of bullet journal, with an action group I wrote. [1] After a year of this, articles like this one convinced me to switch to a paper journal and to get a nice fountain pen. [2] I've done this for about a year and a half now, and when I fill up this current notebook next month, that's it. I'm going back to digital.

Turns out, pen and paper is vastly inferior to digital in every way I care about. Other people love it and that's awesome, but I can't escape the fact that I hate handwriting stuff, and I often cut my thoughts short so I can quit scribbling. Worse, the analog notes aren't actionable. My Drafts workflow turns my day's worth of bullet-style entries into a set of digital diary entries, new calendar events, and tasks in my task manager. I'm already carrying my iPhone with me everywhere [3], so I don't have to remember to drag something else along. If I'm jogging and think of something, I can say "hey Siri, remind me to..." and it makes a note for me without me having to pause and jot it down. Paper seems nice for impromptu drawings, but since keeping a paper journal, I've literally never drawn something in it.

For me, for my workflow, digital is vastly superior. Paper has its strengths, but none of them apply to how I want to use it. I mention all this for the benefit of other people reading this article and feeling vaguely guilty for not toting a paper notebook with them all the time. I think the important part is the note taking itself, not the medium they're recorded with.

[0] As an aside, this is enough for me to remember that day when I look back at it later. It’d be useless for anyone else reading it, but I write for me, not for a hypothetical person who gives a care about what I was doing in 2021.

[1] It got kinda popular: https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Sd

[2] Rhodia Webnotebook A5. Lamy Safari, Noodler’s Baystate Blue ink.

[3] None of this applies while on camping trips. I take a paper notebook with me to write stuff down because I don't have to charge it.

I use 8 pieces of A4 folded in half and stapled. You need a long-necked stapler, (or cotton and thread I suppose) and you're done. It always lies flat. A4 is super cheap. You can print covers or different types of page if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Everything about this is great.

Over the past 15 years, I've tried to break my paper notebook addiction numerous times, and have failed every time. It took a year of interacting with people over screen only to realize why paper has worked better for me (and why I'm going back to it after a year of Roam):

Writing things on paper forces you to be a better listener, AND when people realize you're writing things down, they tend to speak more concisely. It's not that hard to type at the speed of most conversations, but it never feels like it's really listening. Watch people who do it! They nod, type furiously, and when they have something they want to add they will change their facial expression to signal that they want to finish typing their sentence before they want to interject.

Saying "hold on, let me write this down" gives everyone a moment to refocus, and it's a lot more natural to say that than "hold on, let me type this". Plus, it makes it much more natural to revisit topics and let the conversation flow.

Roam, Notion, GitHub Issues, etc are all great for asynchronous communication and coordination, but I don't know that any system will ever beat writing things down by hand for talking with people. (Although, the hype around ReMarkable is tough to ignore...)

As I see it we live through a period where two incredible capabilities remain unreconciled. The free format ability of paper to capture nuance, creativity and complexity in recording information versus the powerful augmentation of search / modify / repurpose existing records that you get with digital tools. Not sure there will ever be something that can support both but it does not sound forbidden by some law of nature

I would love to. The most cumbersome thing about notebooks, even larger ones like A3, is 1) they dont lie flat, and 2) even if (eg. rings) when I want to write on the left page, my hand hits the "spine" between the pages and its not comfortable writing.

When I used paper I got used to have a stack of A4, put a title in one corner, I?d keep them on my left beside the keyboard. There are nice a4 in 4 light pastel colors, easier on the eyes than white, and simple memory cue when looking in the pile.

I’d have cheatsheets and tasks, the task/feature pages with lots of check boxes. I’d keep some cheatsheets for a long time, like css/typescript, and the task ones i would throw away when that feature is done.

> If the item either can't or won't be done, cross out the - to make it into a *.

How about put a circle around the - to make it a "stop" sign?

How about a middle ground? I've been looking into the new generation of eink devices that are great for notetaking. Remarkable etc Best of both worlds and no more dead trees

I have used paper but finally with my Remarkable 2 I can keep my paper workflow/feel and don’t waste paper .

Brilliant post!

This system reminds me of Bullet Journaling (https://bulletjournal.com/), which I have used on and off for a long time now. Folks who have adopted Bullet Journaling have come up with some very interesting symbols to capture parts of the day (some which I have found more useful than others).

I do find that any paper-based system breaks down for things that are recurring, and I have to resign and use some calendaring system to accommodate those (think changing the air-filter on the HVAC). I also feel that longer-than-a-day projects are harder to track on paper (If anyone has suggestions here I am all ears). I often find myself thinking of a project, breaking it down, then using paper to take one or two everyday till I feel like I am done.

My approach to finding balance between paper and electronic is

- Use paper daily (for the same reason that the OP suggest). Object permanence is real. I can't tell you how many times I just _remember_ writing something down on the left-hand side near the top that has saved my life. - If a recurring reminder comes through, add it to the list of Todos for today (on paper) - At the end of the day I usually end up transcribing my day into markdown notes (using https://bear.app/)

Over time I have learned that not everything works well in one format (I have been thinking about getting the Remarkable but my god that's steep)—What I end up doing is "linking" from one medium to another.

For example, if I start by writing an entry or a note on paper that I feel will be better described in a diagram or a code snippet I simply put a note on paper telling me to go to Bear (Since all notes are dated this is relatively easy). Or vice-versa—if I doodled out a diagram on paper, I simply put a "See notebook" in my Bear notes.

Looking forward to seeing how others are doing this.

Good read! My system is similar:

- Yellow (legal) pad for daily todo. Use pen on this pad because it is ok to not keep it neat because the page will be thrown away next morning. So, next morning, tear off the top leaf of yesterday, start no a fresh sheet with the date on top, and transfer any todos that need to be carried forward. Typically, a todo is either done, or not needed, or still pending. The pending ones make it to the fresh page.

- A notebook for note taking. E.g. meetings, or plans etc. I use a mechanical pencil and an eraser with this one. Mistakes and badly written words can be erased and rewritten. When I reference this notebook, it is good to see that things are legible even after a few days.

Summary:

- Legal pad and a pen for tasks. Start a new leaf every morning.

- Notebook, pencil, eraser for notes. Keep it neat, and can be referenced later.

For me, the Rocketbook line of notebooks gives me the best of both worlds. I write/draw in the notebook, then I can scan the pages with the app, and the images land in my Google Drive (configurable). Then when the notebook is full I wash the pages and it's ready to start over.

I’ve turned to using text editor and then paper too, mainly for its simplicity. “Running out of battery” was never a problem for me, but maintenance and getting used to the complex UI of today’s task / knowledge management systems definitely was a painful experience.

Like many others, I have decided to create something new. A tool which would be simple to use just like a text editor / paper but functional like a full fledged app. It’s a hard problem. Though I feel like new approaches are needed, especially because the way the alternative tools are designed today seems a bit obsolete. The 21st century deserves something better..

happy to share the access https://acreom.com/ and receive some feedback.

This is a good writeup. I tried paper, maybe I should try it again.

I think one benefit of this journaling is that you could easily do a personal retro weekly or so and update a digital brag file. As a manager I loved when reports have a brag file, as this helps immensely during a performance review cycle.

Nothing about shorthand. Not that this blog post specifically should have, but it seems conspicuously absent in all blog posts about paper, handwriting, note taking, etc. It's an established idea and demonstrably allows people to take dictation and court reporting at much faster speeds than handwriting - print or cursive.

Why is it such a non-thing, even in productivity/efficiency circles and alternate/quirky circles, why aren't we taught it early on in school where we're expected to go the next decade taking handwritten notes during lectures?

    -> debug xesite on xbox
    -> cert for xesite
      - gplay + MS
    + w10 testing 1.10
      · cannot reproduce supposed issue with exit nodes, network issues?

I find myself feeling naked whenever I'm too far from a pen and paper. I take most of my structured notes on a computer, but paper is where I think through ideas. I can draw diagrams, do math, and organise thoughts visually more easily on paper than digital.

I also hate taking notes or writing much more than a text on my phone, so I enjoy having a notebook or looseleaf paper wherever I am.

Somewhat of a random note, but what's up with the WebMention trackbacks at the bottom of OP? I'm not seeing any outright malicious/spam links but there's a lot of redundancy, and unhelpful anchor texts like "Bridgy response" in some links, whilst other links from the same service manage to excerpt the mention correctly.

I only use paper to capture the 3-5 most important things du jour. All the other notes go into Bear.app — Tried all-paper a gazillion times but if you work a lot with links, visual inspirations, code snippets, etc. it just doesn't make sense — no matter how much I love sharpening that Blackwing pencil.

Sounds nice, but I can barely read my own handwriting and my hand starts to hurt after writing like one word.

I like using paper for notes, TODOs, drafts, doodling, etc. Especially I like that tactile feeling when I roll a (mechanical) pencil in my fingers. As of paper: I prefer notebooks with tear-off pages, and love to crumple and throw them out when completed ))

I kinda use Google docs in same manner. I have separate documents for different professional projects and personal goals. I use them in append mode only, and simple colors to differentiate to-do and done items- red/black.

I can and happily will second the A5 Rhodia Webnotebook recommendation. They're small enough for convenience, big enough for depth, sturdy enough to stand up to prolonged and heavy use, and full of beautiful Clairefontaine paper on which it's a positive pleasure to write. I've been using them for my diary for years now, and expect to go on doing so as long as I can still get them.

(Fwiw, I like a Decimo better than a Safari, although probably not as a first fountain pen - you want to start with a steel nib, which will be more forgiving as you learn a lighter hand, and the Decimo is both gold-nibbed and fairly expensive among pens that aren't coded "luxury". That said, if you're looking for a change, a Decimo is also light and comfortable to use, and durable in real-world use; I carry mine in my shirt pocket, and the only thing so far to give it trouble was a Labrador who was very excited to see me again for the first time in some years. Some folks do have grip trouble with the pocket clip, but all I can say is it's never bothered me, and the sheer understated elegance of the pen's design - in every way the opposite of the "look at me!" that a lot of more conventional pens convey - is a pleasure in itself, besides.)

The only advantage of paper notebooks I've seen so far is that in certain specific corporate settings, you'll be seen as more professional/serious/"executive".

Otherwise, for me, if you want to do art, then sure, paper like any medium is a valid matter of stylistic choice. And I fully understand the tactile and visual pleasure of choosing and touching and interacting with a finely crafted physical product. But if you want to do practical / functional, digital beats paper the way paper beat clay tablets. Just the sheer convenience of having all of my notes and tasks, EVER, organized effortlessly, on any device I happen to be near, is a pure slam dunk. Shareability, automation, reminders, analysis, updates, backups... list goes on.

(I'll still be more excited to receive a nice paper letter than a quick text, of course :)

Wow that Drafts action thing looks amazing. I’ve not used Drafts much, how does the action group run: you do it manually somewhere within Drafts?

And then once you run it, you archive that day’s notes and start a new one for the next day?

I imported it and m currently trying to find where you run custom actions in ios Drafts.

I personally don't like paper much because I write terribly, so either it takes a lot of time, or I can't read half of it. This makes writing either frustrating or useless.

How many notes do you actually take? It takes about 113kg co2 to produce an iPad[1] and other tablets may produce more as much as 200kg. That's roughly equivalent to the emissions from producing 2000-6000 sheets of paper [2].

But we are not including the running electricity emissions of of the Remarkable, plus the co2 emissions of their cloud service. Plus electronics produce a lot dirtier pollution on disposal than paper.

I taught 4 courses this year, plus research work. And I think I got through about 500 sheets of notes. If I had a Remarkable, it would maybe last 4-5 years. I think lifetime pollution from a tablet like Remarkable is always going to be more than from just using paper.

[1] https://newzik.com/blog/ipad-environmental-report/

[2] https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/good-stats-on-carbon-saving/

I have one. You still can’t quickly flick back onto last week’s notes, and object permanence issues remain. Will never be the same as paper.

A better middle ground is probably one of those smart pens that automatically digitizes your scribbles, while you’re still using a paper notebook.

While I love my Remarkable 2 for taking notes, journaling, drawing and sharing/exporting the results, it lacks search/discoverability/navigation.

In a physical notebook it’s trivial to flip back a few pages to recall a note from last week. On remarkable that takes a lot more time, and the time cost is paid twice, once for finding the old note, and a second time to get back to the page I was writing. (Imagine working in a single browser window fullscreen without tabs).

I’m still looking for an optimal flow. And I’m gravitating towards something that can ingest remarkable pages, perform OCR and categorise/index the results.

Same here. The main benefits to me would be the ability to search and extract notes more easily.

Currently using a pen and paper system that's not dissimilar to bullet-journaling, but adapted to play nicer with unescapable digital calendars etc.

> no more dead trees

Doesn't paper comes mostly from managed forests? Or maybe you attach a higher value to the life of trees than most people? (which is fine, just surprising to me)