Tangentially, does anyone use a stamping device to put dates in their notebook? I am looking for something that sets the date and, preferably, the time automatically so that I have less friction keeping my notebook timestamped.
Using an engineering notebook
81–90 of 161 posts
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#82I was given this advice at university, but what I was always missing was what I was supposed to write down in them. The post here mentions hypotheses, but I don't do experiments for the most part. It mentions writing down in the notebook before writing code, but I can't test my notes, I can't really send my notes for code review. I guess you could use it for design, but you'd lose all the advantages of word processin…
What I write down is usually a quite literal dump of my brain. I have a problem, and rather than keeping it in my head, I write it down, and force myself to continue writing about the topic to force myself trying to find solutions, rather than be obsessed with the question.
Example: "I need to solve problem A. Problem A can be formulated in this way. This way is similar to a project I did a few years ago, if I remember correctly I had done B and C. However B would not work in the current situation, but would it not though? The issue is that it clashes with component X and Y. What about C? Hmm maybe but I needed approval from Z." etc. All of these thoughts are written down, without filter.
Forcing me to write down has two effects. The first one, slow down my thoughts, because discarding idea B after only 0.1 second of consideration is not productive if you do not explicitly think about why it is a bad idea, and consider the bad idea anyways. The second one is that writing down (especially manual writing and not keyboard typing, for reasons I cannot explain) allows you to think more deeply about your ideas, to envision it in different ways, not only the first way that popped to your mind. I think that keyboard writing requires too much of my brainpower compared to handwriting.
Moreover, in these sessions, having the possibility to look back to a previous idea immediately is extremely useful, and cannot be attained if you use an erasable surface rather than a notebook.
I have to say though that I very rarely look back to what I wrote after the session took place, unless I need to get back to the exact same problem.
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#83Obsidian with the (core) Daily Notes⁽¹⁾ plugin plus Jump-To-Date⁽²⁾ and Daily Note Navbar⁽³⁾ is a powerful combo for me. Everything is still searchable (or can be fed into an LLM) since it’s all Markdown text files behind the scenes. (And I can type my thoughts much faster than I can write.) ⁽¹⁾ https://help.obsidian.md/plugins/daily-notes ⁽²⁾ https://github.com/TfTHacker/obsidian42-jump-to-date ⁽³⁾ https://github.co…
Curious to know what you actually do with the notes, though. I've tried to get in the habit of keeping daily journals but it ends up being very much write once, read never. Maybe having some kind of fuzzy, semantic search or LLM would unlock their usefulness, but so far I don't find myself ever really using the things I write down.
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Re: Using an engineering notebook
#84I was given this advice at university, but what I was always missing was what I was supposed to write down in them. The post here mentions hypotheses, but I don't do experiments for the most part. It mentions writing down in the notebook before writing code, but I can't test my notes, I can't really send my notes for code review. I guess you could use it for design, but you'd lose all the advantages of word processin…
I picked up bullet journaling a few years back and that’s how I track my work: o Sales meeting with Foo Corp - Suggested to Sam that we use PostgreSQL - Made us $X by doing $Y (star drawing) . Fix a thing / In the process of fixing a thing X Done fixing the thing And that’s about it. I write this in an epaper notebook (Supernote Nomad) that I take everywhere in the office. At a glance I can tell you what I’m working…
What is the Nomad like? What were your concerns when selecting an epaper notebook? Which alternatives did you rule out and why?
Sorry, just long wanted to get one but the good ones are expensive and I don't want to experiment with that kind of money.
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#85I used to carry a physical notebook, but now I just Brain Dump to a (now giant and growing) Notepad++ Text file.
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#86I was given this advice at university, but what I was always missing was what I was supposed to write down in them. The post here mentions hypotheses, but I don't do experiments for the most part. It mentions writing down in the notebook before writing code, but I can't test my notes, I can't really send my notes for code review. I guess you could use it for design, but you'd lose all the advantages of word processin…
I don't have a full-blown notebook, but I keep task notes in individual text files. A sample text might be: - Fixing broken test: (full ci link) - seems to be repo foo, target //bar:baz, subtest TestSomethingNice. Error: (30 lines of stack trace here) - git checkout 0ead3f820da34812089 - trying locally: bazel test //bar:baz - command failed, error: (relevant error here) - turns out I need to set a config, reference:…
I use a daily log system. I just run this bash script to open my log for the day.
This opens the same file all day, so I can add stuff, and I know how to find old stuff, it's easy to grep, etc..
## create new log file for personal logging
vi ~/daily_logs/personal_logfile_$(date +%j_%m%d%y)Re: Using an engineering notebook
#87I used to carry a physical notebook, but now I just Brain Dump to a (now giant and growing) Notepad++ Text file.
I used to do that but switched to Logseq and love it. Most people use obsidian.
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#88I was given this advice at university, but what I was always missing was what I was supposed to write down in them. The post here mentions hypotheses, but I don't do experiments for the most part. It mentions writing down in the notebook before writing code, but I can't test my notes, I can't really send my notes for code review. I guess you could use it for design, but you'd lose all the advantages of word processin…
I'm a software engineer, but I use it to write down hypotheses: the cause of a bug, how I'm guessing a system works, potential fixes for said bugs, what I think this piece of documentation means, etc
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#89Generally it is a good advise, I found similar things very useful for me.
I think emphasis on paper and one notebook is wrong here and likely will fail quite a bit of people who will try it. Also prescriptions like "They're very detailed" (i.e. notes) are IMO too rigid.
Start from wherever suit you, play, experiment and pay attention what works for you, adjust and iterate. Don't fixate on shiny concepts, i.e. "engineering notebook", and the "need" its records to be dated, etc. Try something, let it lapse. See if you are worse without it, then adopt it back. If you don't see the difference, so be it.
Re: Using an engineering notebook
#90ive been suggesting this to my teammates for awhile. i use mine to track long term goals, walk myself through my status on my in progress work items to prep for standup, and take any quick notes when i learn something new or need to remember something like a due date or a point of contact for something. pretty cool looking back through my old ones as well since I've been doing it since I was an intern (ive got like 5 years of notebooks now XD)