anyone try e-ink style tablets (like remarkable?) the form factor/ability to backup is attractive to me but the price tag is a bit nuts...
Take better notes, by hand
11–20 of 103 posts
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#12This is all good advice but one thing it doesn't touch on is: which pen and notebook? I like the pilot precision v5 pens because they come in a lot of different colors and the point is very fine. For notebooks, I prefer the Leuchtturm 1917 series. They come with page numbers, a space for TOC, a pocket in the back for stuff, two book marks, and lots of different sizes and colors and page layouts. That's important beca…
I love the Leuchtterm 1917s. They've got everything you say, and they hold up under daily use without falling apart. As for pens, I use the Uniball Jetstream 0.38 ballpoint--fine point, doesn't skip, and I prefer ballpoints. I used a Coleto Hitec C multi-pen for a while, but the refills are skinny and run out of ink quickly, and I like the feel of the Jetstream ballpoint better. (The refills for the regular Coleto Hi…
If you like Leuchtterm, you'll love Quo Vadis Habana notebooks, if you can find them in stock.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#13anyone try e-ink style tablets (like remarkable?) the form factor/ability to backup is attractive to me but the price tag is a bit nuts...
I tried various ones out over the course of a few years, but in the end found they weren't for me and I went back to using paper notebooks.
I won't say they're bad solutions at all, but just that they brought no actual benefits for my use cases so there wasn't a reason to put up with their downsides. The downsides are relatively minor, though. For me, they are cost, the need to charge yet another device, and the inconvenience of the form factor (you can't tear pages out to hand to someone else, they rigid tablets instead of flexible paper, writing on them isn't the most pleasant thing, etc.)
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#14anyone try e-ink style tablets (like remarkable?) the form factor/ability to backup is attractive to me but the price tag is a bit nuts...
My coworker got the reMarkable 2 about four years ago now, and was really into it when he got it. I had sort of forgotten about it until the other day when I was reconsidering whether I wanted to get one. When I asked him about it, he was just as enthusiastic as when I asked him years ago. It was sitting right next to him ready to go, with notes from that same day on the screen. Just an anecdote to consider.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#15This is all good advice but one thing it doesn't touch on is: which pen and notebook? I like the pilot precision v5 pens because they come in a lot of different colors and the point is very fine. For notebooks, I prefer the Leuchtturm 1917 series. They come with page numbers, a space for TOC, a pocket in the back for stuff, two book marks, and lots of different sizes and colors and page layouts. That's important beca…
A good 0.5mm gel pen, and a pad with blank 8.5x11 pages, no lines no nothing. About once a week, I consolidate whatever is still relevant onto a few sheets.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#16anyone try e-ink style tablets (like remarkable?) the form factor/ability to backup is attractive to me but the price tag is a bit nuts...
I love it as a reader when travelling, and books too long to print. I do take notes when i bring it to conferences, but most of all just to keep engaged, though to keep all notes at one place is practical.
Though when at home/office nothing beats paper and the possibility to visually have multiple pages side by side. Any research article I want to work through I print out, and I buy more paper books now than before I bought the remarkable. Paradoxically, the remarkable helped me realize the incredible value of paper.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#17I have a dedicated couple of pages in a notebook, where I write down the note-taking conventions I use. When transitioning to a new notebook, I would copy those pages, possibly making a few improvements based on past usage. A most unhurried release cycle, if I can say so myself.
Regarding the space management, there are many solutions straight out of the programming world, of course: utilize both sides of the notebook, reserve a minimum number of pages per topic, keep an index with free pages, etc. But there are some hardware ones as well, I'm trying Atoma notebooks (https://atoma.be) these days.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#18anyone try e-ink style tablets (like remarkable?) the form factor/ability to backup is attractive to me but the price tag is a bit nuts...
I had a ReMarkable2 for awhile and don't really recommend it. It's not the same as writing on pen & paper and I like the aspects of finding different papers, pencil lead, pens, etc. anyways.
To be more specific, the ReMarkable 2 had a wildly inaccurate pen tip, but only on like the bottom 1/2 to maybe 1/3 of the screen, which was enough to completely destroy my desire to use it at all. On top of that the software is pretty meh. It wasn't bad so much as it was minimal to the point of being harder to work with than real paper. The UI was clunky and slow. Any real advantage to digital nature (built-in OCR, sorta search) was so poorly implemented that it wasn't worth it.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#19I retain information better when taking notes by hand. However, being able to attach an image and search is absolutely required for me, hence why I use digital notes at work. I can keep years of notes in a file which I can take and access anywhere whenever I want.
Personally I like Goodnotes since it is pretty good at searching handwriting.
Plus 1, Goodnotes is such a well developed product. I also have an iPad screen guard which gives a paper like feel when writing which makes my brain think I am writing on a book.
Re: Take better notes, by hand
#20This is all good advice but one thing it doesn't touch on is: which pen and notebook? I like the pilot precision v5 pens because they come in a lot of different colors and the point is very fine. For notebooks, I prefer the Leuchtturm 1917 series. They come with page numbers, a space for TOC, a pocket in the back for stuff, two book marks, and lots of different sizes and colors and page layouts. That's important beca…
I think pens and pencils are mostly just preference and habit. I have some draftmatic mechanical pencils, nothing special really, but I’ve been using them for decades.
I suspect the real advantage of handwritten notes (for those who benefit from them) is that writing them fulfills a learned ritual for putting the brain in learning-mode. So, might as well match the environment as closely as possible, and prioritize familiarity over some quality.
Anyway, I can write obnoxiously small with my draftmatics, so I don’t see how the process could be optimized by a fancier pencil or pen anyway.