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Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#81

Post by roryisok »

roryisok wrote: post #22
vidarh wrote: post #18

Paper in big binder. I've tried for very long to find a good electronic solution. Up to and including writing my own wiki with various extensions customised to my diting style, and hunting around for every note taking app under the sun. The problem, I find, is that nothing beats the flexibility of being able to take out multiple sheets of paper and move them around, annotate them, put them back in. It creates a flexi…

Scott Hansleman has a great video where he outlines why paper is better. Quite entertaining

Link: https://youtu.be/IWPgUn8tL8s?t=54m48s

The next slide after the 43 folders is "sync to paper", that's the bit I recall

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#82

Post by ooqr »

roryisok wrote: post #25
ooqr wrote: post #4

To answer the question in the title, much as I love computers, nothing beats the flexibility and carefree nature of paper. I can draw diagrams, block out pseudocode, etc. I've thought about maybe a Surface would be nice for that, but haven't really tried it. I think you'll have best luck with multiple tools like you're doing now.

I've tried the surface for note taking. It was a lovely experience, especially the pen in OneNote, but nothing beats paper. Lighter, thinner, more flexible, cheap, no lag, doesn't need batteries etc. No vendor lock in. Surface / pen only had the edge in that you can mark up a doc and send it to someone a lot faster than printing, marking and scanning However, I'm often faster at writing with a keyboard, and I use one…

Also, the only reasons I'd need backups for paper documents are disasters that would also ruin my drives

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#83

Post by tytrin »

proaralyst wrote: post #62
vidarh wrote: post #18

Paper in big binder. I've tried for very long to find a good electronic solution. Up to and including writing my own wiki with various extensions customised to my diting style, and hunting around for every note taking app under the sun. The problem, I find, is that nothing beats the flexibility of being able to take out multiple sheets of paper and move them around, annotate them, put them back in. It creates a flexi…

I do all my thinking on paper, but I have a large blocker at the moment: indexing my notes. Have you found a good solution for this?

I've run into the same problem before. I found that Bullet Journals have a good system for this. And it is applicable to any notebook you have. (Similar suggestion was made earlier in the comments.) Link: http://bulletjournal.com/

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#84

Post by magwa101 »

throwanem wrote: post #14

Somebody's going to mention org-mode and it may as well be me. HTML export with syntax highlighting is a nice thing to have, and images linked to the document work like they should. Having code blocks be executable is a bonus, especially for showing technically minded clients or higher-ups exactly how their intentions were translated into reality. Evernote it is not: The sharing story is pretty BYOB, in that what you…

Org mode enables you to "program" a document which is really amazing. It's closer to python notebooks than a note taking device. You need real discipline to keep it readable.

Long term Org mode needs a rethink to more fully realized programming + writing.

Short term it needs some work on document sharing, mobile editing, all that.

I use Org mode for large docs, google docs for quick notes, google sheets for TODOs, pad/pen google photos for quick notes and recording of those notes.

This is a mess really.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#85

Post by baldfat »

vidarh wrote: post #63
proaralyst wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do all my thinking on paper, but I have a large blocker at the moment: indexing my notes. Have you found a good solution for this?

I don't. I transfer long-lasting notes to a wiki or relevant documentation. I on purpose try to integrate notes into something existing, and/or archive them regularly

I reverted to just taking pictures of my notes. I then put them into Google Docs for storage and put on tags if I need them for storage. (I use to use Evernote for storing my pictures of my notes but ...)

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#86

Post by gglitch »

TobbenTM wrote: post #35

I've been a fan of the concept of Quiver ( http://happenapps.com/#quiver ) for a long time, but unable to use it daily as it is Mac only. I love the idea of having different notebooks, being able to easily merge text, code, mathematics and images into one note, and make 'cookbooks' out of them. Someone make it for Windows please.

I'd be all-in on Quiver if there were a mobile client and nested folders.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to take notes?

#88

Post by gglitch »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #29

I use Jupyter notebooks and write in markdown.

It has repeatedly been observed here that Quiver and Jupyter have a lot in common. One thing I'm missing with Jupyter, though, is a convenient infrastructure for dealing with a large number of small notes. Are you using one notebook for each note?
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