Re:Ask HN: How to take notes?
by HouseOfBagels on Friday July 17, 2020 @03:05PM
(#23874188)
I've researched the several ways to do this and found that a combination of the following usually works for me:
- Samsung Note device using an S-Pen to either draw diagrams, rough sketches, or jot notes and then later convert them to saved image files.
- Fountain pens and individual notebooks for meeting notes, book excerpts, quotes, etc. I find that writing down things and having no structure just leads to confusion and a mess of notes that's more time consuming to find when needed. Having sections or just dedicated pages for topics makes it manageable.
- Jotlin app for extensive note taking on a particular topic/interest that wouldn't fit neatly into a couple of handwritten pages.
- Apple Notes/Google Keep rarely but it does serve its purpose if there's nothing else available.
- I type faster than I write and when taking notes or highlighting captures from a book, Google Books has a very useful way of creating a doc file from everything highlighted: book page, page number, relevant highlighted section.
I've tried the whole Bullet Journal techniques and found that it's just an obsessive methodology of note taking with a steep learning curve, it didn't serve my purposes though and I don't knock it if others find it valuable.
- Samsung Note device using an S-Pen to either draw diagrams, rough sketches, or jot notes and then later convert them to saved image files.
- Fountain pens and individual notebooks for meeting notes, book excerpts, quotes, etc. I find that writing down things and having no structure just leads to confusion and a mess of notes that's more time consuming to find when needed. Having sections or just dedicated pages for topics makes it manageable.
- Jotlin app for extensive note taking on a particular topic/interest that wouldn't fit neatly into a couple of handwritten pages.
- Apple Notes/Google Keep rarely but it does serve its purpose if there's nothing else available.
- I type faster than I write and when taking notes or highlighting captures from a book, Google Books has a very useful way of creating a doc file from everything highlighted: book page, page number, relevant highlighted section.
I've tried the whole Bullet Journal techniques and found that it's just an obsessive methodology of note taking with a steep learning curve, it didn't serve my purposes though and I don't knock it if others find it valuable.