making notes - an instrumental rationality process.

[-]pan10y80

The problem I've had with using physical notebooks is that I never close the loop of actually reviewing them and converting the information into a more useable format (anki, connecting related information, etc).

What I've settled on for the last few years is just emailing myself notes throughout the day from my phone. I empty my inbox each day so every note is moved into its appropriate location (calendar for events, files by topic for general thoughts, or to do lists for tasks).

The "sexy" factor is something I've noticed though. I'm regularly tempted to move back to physical notebooks because it somehow feels more legitimate. It also can feel rude sometimes to take out my phone and make a note if I'm talking to someone. All in all though I've found the benefits of converting the information into a digital format as quickly as possible to outweigh other factors.

[-]ChristianKl10y00

A good step between physical and digital are Livescribe pens. With them you can take physcial notes that get automatically synced into Evernote.

[-]tanagrabeast10y70

Twenty years ago, I was an American living in Spain. The most useful habit I established was one of carrying around one or two tiny flip notebooks in my shirt pocket. Whenever I left a situation where I hadn't known the right Spanish word to express myself, I would write down the English equivalent in the left column.

At least once a day, I would consult the premium badass bilingual dictionary I kept on my kitchen table, writing the words or phrases I hadn't known on their corresponding lines in the right column.

During spare moments, I would pull out my notebooks and quiz myself. Over a two-year period, I had filled four or five of these notebooks--thousands of words--and rotated them in or out of my pocket as needed to keep every word fresh in my head. It was spaced repetition for an age before we carried computers in our pockets, and it steadily ratcheted up my language mastery in a very satisfying way.

Living now in the age of Anki, I find myself re-embracing this systemized approach for whatever I'm trying to learn. But the weakest cog in the machine is my inconsistency in making a timely note at the moment of insight or confusion. I'm tempted to go buy another mini-notebook... but since I have a phone with a stylus, I'll first try to train a habit to actually use it.

[-][anonymous]10y40

One big difference between "I use a notebook to take notes" and "I use a phone to take notes" is that the latter can easily be mistaken for "I am playing with my phone and not paying attention".

[-]Elo10y20

Absolutely.

[-][anonymous]10y40

I have also tried different formats of notebook, and for a year and a half I have a phone from which to send things. Tried to install a note-writing app and failed thrice, now I only send myself emails.

I send photos of locations. It has already come in handy when I had to remember the way to a population. It felt like magic - I really could see the same exact tree, not rely on the general sense of location. I think I will use this to train my visual memory with other places, in the city, although I do not travel a lot and so this might become boring soon.

Also, photos of fields of view through my microscope. That time I had no choice of camera, and it took a lot of swearing to actually capture the images, but a digital archive is still a good thing. Perhaps I shall make a separate gmail account for photos only.

Photos of timetables, crude maps, parts of plants (definitely beats carrying a herbarium press, although not as reliable since you might miss the crucial feature; but bio ethically, a win), of my kid (I am guilty of not writing letters, but a picture without words is still better than nothing), etc. 'A good naturalist must draw well' is a rule that always frustrated me, since I don't draw well. I once went to great lengths to draw a young plant in my notebook, more like map it in actual size. I am still proud of that picture. However, it turned out to be a species of Dictamnus, and my sister (who helped me) still has stripes on her forearms which don't tan well. (Kinda like scars, but without puckering tissue. We are twins. I don't have anything like that. Must be the whole 'my object of study' effect.) Were I to just take a photo, the lesson would be less painful.

As to notebooks, I carry a small one with lined paper and a pencil holder in my little bag, for ideas/addresses/stuff to buy/...), a middle-sized grid-paper one in my main bag, and several stationary at home, for recipes and the like.

[-]ColtInn10y30

Six months ago I reverted to carrying and using a notebook. Prior to that I'd been using OneNote on my phone, with some success. The main reasons I began using a notebook again are: 1) when thinking about a particular problem I like to attempt describe its features in words, with a graph, and with math, where possible; 2) I find that I think slightly more clearly when I have to use a pen, and tend to be able to recall it better - not sure why this is.

I use a notebook that is about one third wider, slighter longer, and around three times thicker than my phone. It's pocket-able in most scenarios. The note books I use have a hard cover, an elastic band attached (which I use to keep a bullet space pen attached horizontally along the top of the book for a perfect fit) and is 250 lined pages.

I begin using it from the front for general notes, and record quotes or specific segments of text from the back. Collecting quotes together makes them much easier to find when the pad begins to fill up. I also underline each use of the general notes so that topics are clearly demarcated, making each easier to find later on.

Another related habbit I've gotten into over this period is using a single document notepad in the form of a Google Docs file. I have headings for books and book chapters, journal articles, blog posts, other articles, quotes, theory snippets/examples. If I have had cause to read a journal article, for example, I'll take a few minutes to write up a summary and the full reference for later use, even if I had no intention at the time to use it later. This has been a tough habit to form, but has proven to be very beneficial over the few months that I've been doing it. Of course, if a blog post or newspaper article was semi interesting, but useful only as a consumption good, I'll usually not record it.

Between these two forms of general not taking I've found that most of my needs are covered. I lost the ability to attach photos when switching back to a pen, but I haven't missed it much. I still take the pictures, it just adds and extra step to collate them, but it is something I rarely do. Before putting a full notepad to rest on the bookcase, I'll go through it and add relevant entries to my general notes Google doc (I've usually already done this) or add them in expanded form to specific topic documents.

A drawback is the potential to lose the notebook at any given time, and this is where digital connected versions are vastly superior. When I can draw and write by hand on a widely used phone as easily as I can with a notebook, I'll switch. My solution to the words, graphs and maths note taking on the phone was to record the words by typing them into OneNote, then finding a pen and paper, drawing and writing the pictures and symbols, then taking pictures and adding them to the note. This was fine when a pen and paper were readily available, but they often weren't.

[-]casebash10y30

I'm tempted to get a notebook for those circumstances when it wouldn't be appropriate to write it down in my phone. I really like being able to search my past notes.

[-]ColtInn10y40

Many note taking apps allow you to attach a picture. You could take notes with a pen when it is inappropriate to use your phone, then take a picture of those notes and attach them to an entry in the app. Those notes are then digitally searchable.

[-]casebash10y20

Interesting idea

[-]Steven_Bukal10y30

I take notes on my phone. I think some big tradeoffs compared to a paper notebook are less ease of writing, more convenience, less physical space taken up, and an end result that is easier to back up and work with in many ways.

[-]RomeoStevens10y20

The key breakthrough for me was making google keep one of the quicklaunch icons on my homescreen. I can enter it instantly, jot something down, and then process it on my laptop later without any transference step.

[-]Elo10y00

[pollid:1028]

As usual; please add any comments you have

[-]Good_Burning_Plastic10y30

What if I do have a notepad but don't come anywhere near going through one every two months?

[-]Elo10y00

I write really messy and big and irrelevant stuff. But I choose to write extra stuff just in case I grab something that turns out to be useful.

Do you feel like you are noting things that are important? Have you ever had a thought of, "I should write this down" and then decided it was too hard because your notebook is away in your bag?

what do you think is stopping you from writing more?

As you see - my notebook is small and 200 pages, if you had a bigger notebook it would take longer to go through...

[-]ChristianKl10y20

I use Evernote to take notes and at the moment via phone or computer. I usually also carry paper to write things down.

[-]gjm10y20

This seems to be at least two separate polls: one about whether people have / will have a notepad and one about whether the post was helpful. (Also: some people may carry a notepad around but not use it to take notes with anything like the intensity you're recommending here. Me, for instance. I should strictly check "I already have a notepad" but that doesn't mean "I'm already doing roughly what you recommend".)

[-]Elo10y00

Already having a notepad and using it well; disqualifies you from needing the help that this post suggests. It is entirely possible to have a notepad but not use it;

there is no place in this world for people not either getting notepads or having notepads.

[-]gjm10y30

My actual situation, as it happens, is that I

have a notepad
- carry it around with me all the time
- use it much less than you describe
have a notebook at work specifically for work purposes
- use it roughly as you describe (specifically at work)

and I really don't know whether the intention of your poll is that I should check "I already have a notepad" or some other option. (My guess: "have a notepad" really means "have a notepad and use it extensively as described in this post", "get a notepad" has the obviously consequent meaning, etc., so I should probably not claim to "already have a notepad".)

Of course it doesn't matter much whether I have difficulty answering your poll question. But others may too, and (1) this may bias your results (away from "difficult" cases) and (2) it may make the answers harder to interpret.

[-]Elo10y00

Yes this is probably confusing things; its also probably too late to make it better, as adjusting polls makes them lose previous votes...

The fact that you have done the thinking around this means that you probably don't need to be a normal user of the poll. So - happy days!

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

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making notes - an instrumental rationality process.

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