I use the arc notebook system. Hands down the best notebook I have come across in 20 years.
Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
41–50 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#42Evernote and remarkable 2. Evernote captures raw data very well, let's me format and search, and let's me copy and paste from the rest of the computer.
Remarkable replaces paper, which is what I used when writing to think. It does a great job.
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#43[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#44Org mode in emacs.
I will write markdown files in the repo for a project with some big picture things.
For learning stuff will do a test.c/cc/py/go/sh/Java file in ~
I use paper for very formless thought about more complex stuff that I am wrestling with.
With org mode I keep maintaining the file (lot of stuff is todos). The markdown files keep getting edited and linked to during the life of the project. Paper notebooks I have about five from 25 years of work and stack them in a drawer or so on. When I want to reminisce about some old cool thing I will leaf thru them, impressed at my cleverness and naïveté.
Before I got into org mode i would use Mac yellow stickies app, and delete when they went out of scope.
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#45I use a 5 subject notebook and write notes down in that throughout the day, during meetings etc. From that I will usually, once or twice a week, take the things that are important and put them into my Apple Notes (used to use OneNote). I do this for a few reasons. 1. Taking notes on a computer during meetings is disrespectful IMO. Every time I see people do it, 80% of the time they are checking email, checking a site…
zoom meetings mean me taking notes in org-mode is quite unobtrusive.
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#46log.txt
I KISS with just a text file. I've tried other methods but only this one stuck. I like Sublime and VS Code b/c hyperlinks can be command+clicked to open. They've also never lost a single character of information, which I cannot say for any other editor, even vim.
Here's how it's formatted:
#TODOS:
one line per item
try to keep this small
once they're done, move to end of file (cut line, cmd+down, paste)
#STICKY:
short reference, stuff you would normally put in a sticky note on your monitor. keep this very small.
#LOG:
09-13
Reverse order log
Think "captain's log" from star trek"
What's a TODO vs a LOG varies.
If a topic gets large enough, it gets put in its own txt file, like interview questions or collected notes for a single project.
[So here is where you would add stuff]
09-12
This would yesterday's notes.
09-09 Some days only deserve one line
09-08 and that's totally fine
[and here would be all your notes. This can be thousands of lines]
#BACKLOG:
Intentionally put this down here, if you run out of TODOs, then come down here
#DONE:
Tasks are moved down here once they're done. In case they need to be pulled back or at performance evaluation to remember what you've done!
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#47My work has a lot of JIRA tickets moving at various speeds: same day quick fixes, some questions that can be turned around next day, some projects done in a week or two, some taking a month or two.
Most notes go in the ticket, but for file management and private notes I create a folder on the desktop with the ticket title. Notes go in "notebook.txt", and usually consists of organizing my thoughts on how to attack the problem, maybe some draft editing of comments I want to post on JIRA, maybe a SQL query, the raw data of any big, important result I find. (e.g. "You can see here this data could not proceed further because X was invalid.")
Most sql queries end up in queries.sql or something in the same folder, along with screenshots when troubleshooting, datasets, etc. If the number of interior folders starts getting disorganized / out of hand / long-running, usually I'll start creating daily folders inside the main folder (e.g. Desktop/prevent-salem-witch-trial-mode/2021-09-13_prevent_moldy_bread )
Rarely do I need to refer back to it, but about once a year when I have a long-running problem that gets passed off to someone else, I'll organize notebook.txt for them, write down a summary of my thoughts, and send a zip file of the folder to them with my summary and recommendations on how to proceed.
After my desktop fills up a bit I'll move them to archive them to an archive folder e.g. Archive/2021/prevent-salem-witch-trial-mode
Nice in that I generally only need just the few places where my data is going to be, and grepWin lets me search for keywords anywhere in the folder.
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#48OneNote. One section for each year, one page for each week. Copy unfinished todos from the last week at the being of every new week.
OneNote is pretty awesome. I don't know why these Google lovers can work without it.
I switched jobs to Google shop. Google keep is straight trash compared to one note. There is reason Microsoft makes bank of office. Outlook, word, one note and the best excel are miles better than anything else for basic use. Yes I use vim alot.. but still office is pretty great.
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#49org-mode with org-roam, generally capturing to an Inbox file for things I’d like to capture, with more detailed filing later. Use org capture templates to grab notes and todos for whatever project I’m working on. Org agenda for deadlines and scheduled tasks
Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes throughout your work day?
#50learn in public. i write messages into our corporate chat system all the time, explaining what i discover & find & encounter.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." has stuck with me for a long time. Linus Torvalds. open source is a philosophy, a religion, and one i wish to practice.