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Thinking with pen and paper

ljvmiranda921.github.io

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Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#81

Post by Archelaos »

Syzygies wrote: post #55

I can remember rolling my eyes at a writer using a mechanical typewriter decades after word processors had taken over. Did they thaw out of a glacier? At the same time I love physical media. As a math professor I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards, imagining that musicians will still play grand pianos in a century, and they'll still snicker over Ryan Gosling playing a toy pia…

> I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards

To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#82

Post by Snitch-Thursday »

I was recently reading Steal Like an Artist and one of the sections referenced having an analog desk and a digital desk, the former for ideation and creativity modes, the latter for editing and revising modes, and I found that salient.

I love my fountain pens and paper, but for permanence and immediacy reasons. It's really hard to put a file attachment for safe-keeping on your hardcover journal.

I love OneNote, but for ease of dumping screenshots, digital ink annotations, file attachments, and generally building up context around a bit of specific information reasons. It's really hard to put your sticker from your family-member's letter on your OneNote notebook.

And those are two different tasks, just like the desks example above.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#83

Post by emadabdulrahim »

coldblues wrote: post #68

For me, what feels like quicksand, is writing on paper. I type very fast on my keyboard 120+ WPM. I want to get my thoughts out of my head as soon as possible, and shape them fast with immediate feedback. My notes are very random and they're all over the place, yet all easily interconnected and searchable because of backlinks and some minimal organization. If I were taking physical notes, I would not have as many not…

Efficiency is good but not the most important thing when it comes to thinking, idea generation, journaling, etc.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#84

Post by s0rce »

user00012-ab wrote: post #59

I would love to see a site where people posted stuff they have been doing for over a year and it still works for them. Seems like all these blog posts are, "I Started doing this yesterday, and I'm going to do it for the rest of my life... or tomorrow when I blog my next big thing I'm going to do forever." I'm more interested in stuff people have stuck with and actually works for them when the novelty of the medium we…

I've used pen and paper for years (since my PhD 15 years ago). Writing it down helps it go into my head, I don't go back and look at the notes.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#85

Post by emadabdulrahim »

lancesells wrote: post #5

If you have a notebook / sketchbook / journal and it needs to be held open with an object look for another notebook [1]. It seems trivial but that is a poorly designed notebook. 1. https://ljvmiranda921.github.io/assets/png/pen-and-paper/bla...

My Midori notebooks lie flat. Not sure what's going on in that picture

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#86

Post by GoodbyeMrChips »

detaro wrote: post #77
rasengan0 wrote: post #74

"I remember in my college chemistry classes, we were instructed never to tear off or hide any error we made in our lab notebooks. Instead, we should mark it with a strikethrough. " +1 OMG Chemistry notebooks FTW. I was always a pencil person and when the professor literally made us cross out our mistakes it felt gross to see the wasted space for 'nonsense', so inefficient. Only later I come to realize that all creati…

In chemistry etc the properly-kept lab notebook is also an almost chain of evidence thing, both for scientific (integrity) and commercial (patents and such) reasons. I.e. never erase, only strike-through so previous error is still readable, numbered pages, each section dated and signed, properly kept index, ... all make it a lot harder to falsify things after the fact. (Nowadays there are also digital record-keeping…

> almost chain of evidence

It is, and was a chain of evidence for me. One that saved my arse.

Type up your reports and spreadsheets, but raw data should always be kept in a proper hardbound paper lab notebook.... one that references the filenames of your typed up electronic data.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#87

Post by thenerdhead »

user00012-ab wrote: post #59

I would love to see a site where people posted stuff they have been doing for over a year and it still works for them. Seems like all these blog posts are, "I Started doing this yesterday, and I'm going to do it for the rest of my life... or tomorrow when I blog my next big thing I'm going to do forever." I'm more interested in stuff people have stuck with and actually works for them when the novelty of the medium we…

I've went through just about every app and I'm back to pencil and journals.

I do use apple notes for just about everything when I have my phone and no pencil/journal nearby.

I think most note taking systems being pushed by "productivity gurus" is compelling at first but then comes a realization that's not how we actually think.

There's merit to things like "building a second brain", but I think it has to start with analog notes.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#88

Post by kstrauser »

vavooom wrote: post #31
egypturnash wrote: post #4

Is Zettelkasten the new Getting Things Done yet? I feel like I'm seeing essays about How I Zettel with the same frequency I used to see essays about How I GTD back when 43folders was pioneering the genre of "productivity influencer". (edit: amusingly enough, I find this near the end: "I also mentioned Zettelkasten many times in this post, but I don’t do that anymore–I just did a 1-month dry run and it felt tiring.")

I've come to the limited experience conclusion that Zettelkasten is a great tool if you are doing detailed non-fiction writing, blogging, or research, and plan to for more than a year. Outside of these scenarios its just storing information that you may/ may not ever refer to or recall.

Nailed it. I've used "Linking Your Thinking" much more successfully for organizing notes in Obsidian when I want to be able to quickly access them. Here's the summary:

Make lots of indexes, or "Maps Of Content".

An index can point to a other pages, including other MOCs. It can also have its own text.

There, that's 95% of it. I have a top-level "Index MOC" page that links to my "Work MOC" (which links to projects I'm working on), "Orders MOC" (that links to a bunch of pages for local restaurants and what my wife likes ordering from them), "Diablo MOC" (because I play a lot of Diablo 3 and keep notes on how to optimize characters), etc.

In short, it's a way to turn a mess of pages into a web of links that I can easily click through if I want to.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#89

Post by dijit »

Archelaos wrote: post #81
Syzygies wrote: post #55

I can remember rolling my eyes at a writer using a mechanical typewriter decades after word processors had taken over. Did they thaw out of a glacier? At the same time I love physical media. As a math professor I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards, imagining that musicians will still play grand pianos in a century, and they'll still snicker over Ryan Gosling playing a toy pia…

> I defend a widespread preference for blackboards over soul-sucking whiteboards To this day it is a real mystery to me why people would prefer whiteboards over blackboards.

I am not kidding when I say this although it sounds absurd to adult me: I was told when I was a kid it was due to racism.

I suspect actually it was simply more economical, and probably something to do with chalk dust. I don’t miss chalk dust.

Re: Thinking with pen and paper

#90

Post by bch »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #48
mikeholler wrote: post #8

I started bullet journaling with pen and paper and it has changed my life. Intentionality -- that's exactly right. When I write I feel intentional. I've also dove into the world of nice paper and fountain pens. I've always had hand cramps when writing, whether using a cheap Bic or a Pilot G7. With fountain pens, that's all gone, and writing is effortless. You can get started with this cheaply by getting a platinum pr…

> You want a fine or extra-fine nib, because anything else will feather and bleed on cheap paper, but fine or extra-fine works just fine on cheap paper. It does depend on the ink, too. I have a Parker XF nib that will absolutely bleed through my notebook, which wasn't exactly cheap either. Not sure if it's supposed to be actually "good paper", though (Leichtturm), but I'm quite disappointed. Diamine ink will take for…

> Not sure if it's supposed to be actually "good paper", though (Leichtturm), but I'm quite disappointed.

I don’t think I had bleed-through problems w Leichtturm (do recall drying/smudging issues though (Mont Blanc Royal Blue ink)), but my Midori “md notebook” has been treating me well.

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