My problem with paper is that I can't keep up with paper. I will lose it several times a day, and inevitably, I will lose it permanently after a year or two. I need the sync and findability that an app on a device affords.
Just use fucking paper, man
11–20 of 182 posts
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#12As @kabdib says, "You can't grep paper."
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#13I've been using supernote, it's pretty much paper.
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#14vim + markdown files <3
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#15If a friend asks me how to get organised, I always tell them to use pen and paper as a first step.
You might use it just for a day or two, but something clicks in your head, you find your workflow, and now you’re able to use more specialised tools.
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#16As @kabdib says, "You can't grep paper."
His use case it todo lists. Do you often need to grep todo lists?
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#17Paper is a sturdy tool; it doesn’t run out of battery, it’s interoperable… it beats apps in many aspects.
But as soon as you need automation, it’s a different story. I couldn’t rely only on paper notes to keep track of my work.
Obsidian has been very useful to keep track of my list of tasks and report what I’m doing. I would spend much more time doing all that with paper.
Details of my setup at https://ergaster.org/posts/2024/07/16-obsidian-contractor/
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#18Flagging emails as "to be read later", keeping track of responses I'm waiting for, reminders, ... all tricky to do when using paper.
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#19Love this.
I sit here at my desk with post it notes scattered everywhere, organizing my thoughts and things to do for the day. Something about being able to physically move them around and cross things off just makes it easier for my brain to work.
The problem with this workflow is getting it into the apps that I use to organize my life. These change from time to time, but Sunsama is the clear winner for me at the moment.
PostIt has a great app to use your camera to organize your notes.
I've also found that Apple's FreeForm has a fantastic feature for scanning. Over the weekend I scanned hundreds of old post-it notes of mine that I was trying to declutter, yet some of them had important thoughts that I wanted to stash for later. I used Freeform to scan all my notes.
Next up I'll try feeding this to a model and see if it can organize my notes and create action items from them.
Come to think of it, I could have done none of this and just organized the notes by hand while scanning them :)
Maybe I should try turning my computer off next time and just thinking before I do something.
Re: Just use fucking paper, man
#20There's only one method of doing to-dos that has worked for me. This method can be used with paper, Obsidian, Apple Notes, or any other app.
Every week I create a weekly note, and write my to-dos for the week. I may add more items to it during the week. If any items didn’t get done I roll them over to the next weekly note or drop them. That’s it.
I usually write my to-dos from scratch without looking at the previous week’s list. This helps me decide which items I should drop. If I can’t remember a to-do it probably wasn’t that important.