The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes

Posted by jsomers on Thursday June 12, 2008 @01:35PM
from the self-post dept.

I'm not sure of the causal direction, but my mood and productivity both seem to shoot up whenever I take playful notes throughout the day. Here's how I do it:

1. I always have a pen(/pencil) and 3x5" notecard on me.

2. One side of the card is for to-dos (i.e., don't go to bed until you finish these N things), and the other for observations, questions, funny quotes from professors, books I should read, things to write about, etc.

3. When I'm bored or at least once at night, I go through the day's notes and (a) act on the easy ones, and (b) put the idea stuff in a text file for later.

I find that having a simple way to take notes keeps me on the ball and intellectually engaged. It may be a bit weird to whip out a note-card in public, but I've found that tons of stuff I didn't think was worth jotting down ends up being a gold mine later on.

( 12 comments | 28 points | on HN )

Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by yan on Thursday June 12, 2008 @02:10PM (#216142)

I keep a small moleskine for medium to large notes. I keep small sheets of paper in my back pocket at all time to jot down something to do later today or tomorrow and cross out when done.

I also catch myself implementing some GTD tips.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by pgebhard on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:21PM (#216354)

I find that a moleskine seems too nice to use up with my chicken-scratch quick notes. I tend to like the feeling of crumpling up a post-it after completing the task on it. I can't cleanly do that with a moleskine. Tearing the page out of those things really makes it less pristine and formal-looking.

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by brianlash on Thursday June 12, 2008 @03:36PM (#216222)

Yeah, I bought some molesinke cahiers for the same purpose. Simple and lightweight, and they take a good beating.

Still, I don't think I'd buy them again. Seconding Yan's sentiment, a notecard (or napkin!) is all you need in moments of inspiration.

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by pavelludiq on Thursday June 12, 2008 @04:22PM (#216267)

I tried to start taking notes, but im pretty chaotic and didn't seem to like it that much. And my handwriting is so horrible that i couldn't read some of them. I take notes from time to time in Knotes on my pc, but rarely and only when i find some idea that i think i might start working on sometime in the future(0.1% of those started, and only half finished). I just checked and i saw that i was supposed to by myself some beer last week :D

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by bprater on Thursday June 12, 2008 @09:13PM (#216434)

I'd love suggestion for something that would fit in a regular jeans or cargo short's pocket. I love moleskins, but the hard cover makes it tough to stuff in your pocket and sit down.

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by talkaboutadate on Friday June 13, 2008 @02:03AM (#216589)

I use the back of business cards. They're tough enough to sit on, easy to carry and small enough not to write too much.

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by delano on Thursday June 12, 2008 @06:01PM (#216342)

I write on anything. I have a deal with myself that whatever I'm noting doesn't have to be correct or even interesting. Just the act of writing it down is enough.

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by joshuaxls on Thursday June 12, 2008 @08:35PM (#216418)

Merlin Mann coined the term "Hipster PDA" for this back when the GTD philosophy was taking off.

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-...

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by tyn on Friday June 13, 2008 @03:50AM (#216619)

For me, my notecard is my mind

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by ComputerGuru on Friday June 13, 2008 @06:55AM (#216677)

Same here, but PostIt Notes are my best friends (instead of note cards) :)

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by not_will on Friday June 13, 2008 @02:50AM (#216597)

twitter+sms?

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Re:The Simple Pleasure of Taking Notes by craigbellot on Friday June 13, 2008 @06:33AM (#216668)

Jott.com

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