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Just use fucking paper, man

andy-bell.co.uk

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Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#131

Post by al_borland »

t_mann wrote: post #88
kepano wrote: post #20

There'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…

Why not a single, permanent file?

I find history useful. What did I do last week? When did I work on project X?

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#132

Post by _g0wg »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #62

I think "use paper" is good for lots of things. But if I'm trying to quickly make notes of lots of things, I end up not being able to find things. Org-roam (or some other similar system) is what I've found to be a good substitute for paper. The thing about both paper and Org-roam/Emacs, is that it's under your own control, and can be tailored to meet your own actual needs, not how someone else thinks you should do th…

I'm also an org-roam and paper guy, but I've designed my system to be platform-agnostic. It's all in the naming conventions.

Files are named hierarchically with periods. I have top-level categories that have changed little over the years. `con.` for concepts, `lit.` for documents, `proj.` for projects... you get the point, I'm not listing all of them unless someone really just wants me to.

My go-to example is always Star Wars. `lore.sw` is my top-level Star Wars note. I also have `lore.sw.chron` which is the chronological watching order. There's also `game.sw` which contains a list of Star Wars games I've found.

This extends to non-note files as well. For images of something I use `.img.[date].#.[ext]`, so for example I have some pictures of my cat named `ppl.neck.img.2024.03.15.1.raw`. I have a video of him murdering a bird too, `ppl.neck.vid.2024.05.22.murdering-a-bird.mp4`... As you can see, sometimes I replace the number with a nice title.

The modularity of it all is great. I can add anything anywhere at any point in the hierarchy without having to re-name things. I name things exactly what they are. The hierarchy can be sparse, parent notes don't have to exist. I can name something `stuff.something.i-dont-know.gif` without having any notes for `stuff.` or `stuff.something.`

I have notes on paper as well, and they use the same system, with the hierarchical name printed in bold at the top of the paper. `self.passwords` is a paper note for obvious reasons. I also keep most of my `sys.internal.` documentation on paper because my computer might not work when I need it most, though a lot of them do have computer versions which I just print out when I change because it's too much to write by hand.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#134

Post by al_borland »

clircle wrote: post #96

I don’t understand how note taking is such an impassioned subject on this site. But fwiw, what works for me is to have notes everywhere. I take notes in a journal, ephemeral notepad, emails, texts to myself, apple notes, and orgmode. I just want to have lots of accessibility.

I think it’s a common shared problem and everyone is looking for the no-compromises solution.

For me…

- One trusted place for all the notes (something that the stuff everywhere model lacks… things get lost or end up being hard to find)

- Portable, avoiding lock-in. The assumption is the usefulness of the notes will outlive any closed platform.

- Multiplatform, with sync. To make it easy to have that one trusted place, and it always be accessible.

- Modern features… can’t sketch too well in markdown and embedding stuff is tedious and doesn’t seem like it will scale well over time without tooling. But tooling brings back the lock-in issue.

And probably some other stuff. The perfect system doesn’t really exist. Compromises need to be made. Each person makes different concessions, while many of us jump from tool to tool, system to system, hoping to have it all, but ultimately living with constant pain and disappointment.

I’ve given up. I’m use Obsidian and work and the Apple stuff at home. If/when I need to migrate off Apple, I’ll deal with it then. Switching every few months sucks.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#135

Post by al_borland »

dunefox wrote: post #61

I love paper, but it's difficult for me to organise the notes properly, I have no search function, screenshots, links, endless canvas, etc. I already own a Remarkable 2 but I really don't like it - it's not much more than an e-ink college block. After almost two years they added the function to draw straight lines, meanwhile I still can't search in handwritten notes - not even after converting them to text. You can a…

I ordered a Daylight tablet. I’m still waiting for it to ship. I’m hoping for a good reading and writing experience, with the benefit of rich options for apps vs just what comes from the OEM, like with Remarkable.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#136

Post by al_borland »

bengale wrote: post #126

I try and keep it simple. Little reporter notebook so I’m not using devices in meetings and things like that. Then I transcribe whatever needs to be a little more long term at the end of the day/week into either Apple notes or reminders. Then rip the pages out and bin them. Im tempted to get something like todoist to organise reminders a little better but I’m cautious that it’s the road to procrastinating.

> Im tempted to get something like todoist to organise reminders a little better but I’m cautious that it’s the road to procrastinating.

Don’t do it. I’ve been down that road. Giving up and simply using Apple Note/Reminders is so much easier. I envy people who just use the first thing that falls in their lap and go with it. It’s all good enough. Nothing is that much better to make it worth the hunt.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#137

Post by _g0wg »

_g0wg wrote: post #132
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #62

I think "use paper" is good for lots of things. But if I'm trying to quickly make notes of lots of things, I end up not being able to find things. Org-roam (or some other similar system) is what I've found to be a good substitute for paper. The thing about both paper and Org-roam/Emacs, is that it's under your own control, and can be tailored to meet your own actual needs, not how someone else thinks you should do th…

I'm also an org-roam and paper guy, but I've designed my system to be platform-agnostic. It's all in the naming conventions. Files are named hierarchically with periods. I have top-level categories that have changed little over the years. `con.` for concepts, `lit.` for documents, `proj.` for projects... you get the point, I'm not listing all of them unless someone really just wants me to. My go-to example is always…

Replying to my own comment here. I decided to list all of the top-level categories because it's something I'm kind of proud of, as it seems to be able to categorize anything I can throw at it:

agenda.: single file, my main TODO. I can also add `.agenda.` anywhere in any hierarchy to make a topic-specific agenda.

archive.: I just slap `archive.` on the front of any filename I want to archive.

con.: notes about concepts

cook.: my cookbook

film.: movies, shows, etc.. Contains both notes and actual films

game.: game notes, downloads, old versions, mod version archive, skins, settings exports, etc.

grp.: social groups, movements, governments, companies, religions, etc. Mostly notes from school and research from work, but some political stuff too.

home.: my house

inbox.: single note, anything can go in here for later processing if I'm feeling lazy

journal.: journal, organized by date (journal.2024.08.27). Hasn't been used in years.

lang.: languages of all kinds; spoken, programming, everything. There's `lang.lisp` next to `lang.latin`

lit.: literature, documents, etc.. Organized as `lit.author.series.document.chapter`. I have a lot of books.

log.: logs, never used this one actually

lore.: research about fictional worlds (I'm into worldbuilding)

meta.: about this collection

music.: playlist dumps, song downloads

ppl.: people

prod.: products

proj.: projects

school.: school stuff, organized as `school.institution.course.unit.chapter.assignment.document`

self.: me

social.: social media

soft.: software

sys.: my systems

veh.: my vehicles

Bonus: I also have `woodheart.` for my worldbuilding project, which contains a copy of most of the above categories within it.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#138

Post by lelandfe »

al_borland wrote: post #133
gumboshoes wrote: post #6

I still use the "hipster PDA": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_PDA

The modern commercialized version of this is Ugmonk’s Analog.

$100 for some index cards and a tray, $40 for a resupply of index cards. Now that's a business model.

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#139

Post by BlueTemplar »

dunefox wrote: post #61

I love paper, but it's difficult for me to organise the notes properly, I have no search function, screenshots, links, endless canvas, etc. I already own a Remarkable 2 but I really don't like it - it's not much more than an e-ink college block. After almost two years they added the function to draw straight lines, meanwhile I still can't search in handwritten notes - not even after converting them to text. You can a…

E-ink tablets come in all kinds of functionalities :

https://ewritable.com/best-e-ink-tablets/#Best_Dedicated_Not...

> [...]

> The native note-taking software has some really nice and unique features that I find really useful. For example, when I start a new page, I write the title at the top, and then lasso-select it and turn it into a heading and the Supernote automatically builds me a Table of Contents based on my headings. I can also draw a five-pointed star anywhere on the canvas to mark the page as important and then do a search for all my stars so that I can action them. There is a touch-sensitive swipe bar on the right-hand bezel which brings up a quick access menu whatever I am doing so that I can quickly flick between notebooks and documents. And the handwriting search feature is supremely fast.

> [...]

Re: Just use fucking paper, man

#140

Post by BlueTemplar »

piva00 wrote: post #109
acyou wrote: post #35

Paper is good if you are solo. I tried Notion, waiting inside the grocery store 30 seconds for it to boot up or load or update or whatever on mobile, gave up on it for day to day tasks. Google Keep is still king. Am I going to be able to consistently pull down a text file from a server on mobile? How will I share a paper shopping list with others? What cheap hosted service should I be using that lets me CRUD my text…

> How will I share a paper shopping list with others? I usually send a picture of it to my partner.

Which even works without an Internet access !
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