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I started a “dirt notebook”

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Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#91

Post by sublinear »

WCSTombs wrote: post #69
sublinear wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to comment similar. I already know I'm going to annoy some people by saying this, but I've gone through both messy and neat phases of life. Every messy phase was almost entirely forgettable and inexperienced noise. Eventually, I'd find stability in my life and become neat again. I'm not saying messiness is inherently shameful, but it is absolutely worth looking at the bigger picture to find answers. I pro…

I think you're completely missing the point. The "messy" notebook isn't supposed to have any aesthetic value or qualities, it's just a tool for the user to record stuff in the moment. It also has nothing to do having a messy phase in life. It literally is just there for you to write stuff down whenever you need or want to.

Unless you live off the grid, paper notebooks are not purely functional. Neither is living off the grid for that matter. I'm not saying there aren't huge benefits to those things, but they aren't strictly necessary.

People find aesthetic value in keeping a neat notebook. It's been a social media trend for many years now. It has to be the majority of jetpens.com customers.

Why wouldn't a messy notebook be similar?

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#92

Post by nicbou »

I just use one notebook for everything. Midori A6. It keeps all my notes and sketches in one sequential set. Learning to waste pages has allowed me to sketch a lot more, which made me a better artist.

There is no system. I use the paper to write things down. Some pages are ugly and others are nice. The cover is full of stickers. There are drafts, coffee stains, doodles, watercolours, to do lists.

The important thing is that I always have this notebook nearby and that I am not afraid to use it. Having two notebooks seems pointless to me, like saving the good china for rare occasions and eating out of paper plates.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#93

Post by nicbou »

picafrost wrote: post #50

One reason I switched to the cheapest notebooks and cheapest (reasonable) pens is a feeling that I was attempting to live a simulacrum of productivity bathed in nostalgia for an era I never lived in, and which probably never existed. There's a vision I am still somewhat attracted to of illuminating notes into a handcrafted moleskin (or whatever) journal and in doing so, creating an artifact that has value across all…

Get a good notebook and a good pen, if only because the cost is almost irrelevant. I waste them just like the cheap crap because wasting pages is am essential part pf the creative process.

Midori notebooks have set a higher bar for me. At 10 euros every few months, it is well worth the upgrade. Likewise for pens. They are like 2 euros each.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#94

Post by nicbou »

whalesalad wrote: post #8

I used to have the same problem I would buy fancy moleskins or really nice Japanese grid notebooks, and I always felt like I had to model what I was trying to get out of my head to the medium rather than just focusing on getting it out of my head. Not too long ago I accidentally bought a huge package of wide ruled spiral notebooks. I hate wide ruled and prefer college ruled. So they sat collecting dust for a long tim…

Fancy notebooks are cheap enough to treat them like a drainage ditch. My no fucks given notebook is IMO the best Japan has to offer, and it’s just 10 euros. I have had more expensive sandwiches.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#95

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

iammjm wrote: post #73
lionkor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of notes do you take? It's always been kind of difficult, as someone who takes maybe a page of notes a week, to imagine what people fill entire books of notes full, outside of university etc.? I had a friend who would write notes on everything. Every time he learned something, he would write it down in his own words. This sounds good, but he ended up basically internalizing and studying his own misunderstan…

Sure. For me writing is an aide to thinking and remembering. When I have a thought, a task or anything I don’t want to lose, I just pull up my pocketbook and write it down. For my bigger notebook, I use it to jumpstart any task or project that needs several steps. I feel it helpful to write thoughts down, like it forces me to actually think thoughts through and end a sentence with a dot. I also sometimes sketch, make…

This is an insightful comment that you have written and I appreciate you writing it, I had bought many pocket notebooks from a local shop but I ended up using them less than I imagined though I do have it near me but I don't end up writing on it.

Personally I have found recently that Excalidraw is really good in terms of drawing with one of the mouse that I have (Logitech Razer) though I also found that drawing with mouse or staring into screen while writing is a bit more dizzy experience than I expected and I still thrive on pen/paper when thinking about coding problems and within that a standard A4 size notebook really does wonder but the problem to me is also what many people here face and I didn't know that everyone felt so much of this exact same problem!

I will try to keep the pocket diary in my pocket now, and probably a pencil (maybe mechanical) with it :)

but do you keep the content from diary and merge it with your digital notes and if so how do you proceed doing that?

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#96

Post by dd8601fn »

coffeefirst wrote: post #14
dd8601fn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What movie did you make? Anything we’d know?

Unless you were at a couple of obscure film festivals in the early 2010s, definitely not! We were hobbyists making features and shorts on a shoestring budget with no expectations of “making it.” It was a blast. It’s also an all-consuming hobby that you can’t keep up forever. The last short film we did before is still online https://vimeo.com/144277181

That’s awesome. I did some low budget hobby ones in the late 90s/early 00s… back when we had to rent time on real hardware for editing. Nothing that’s even online.

I’ll check that one out.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#98

Post by iammjm »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #95
iammjm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. For me writing is an aide to thinking and remembering. When I have a thought, a task or anything I don’t want to lose, I just pull up my pocketbook and write it down. For my bigger notebook, I use it to jumpstart any task or project that needs several steps. I feel it helpful to write thoughts down, like it forces me to actually think thoughts through and end a sentence with a dot. I also sometimes sketch, make…

This is an insightful comment that you have written and I appreciate you writing it, I had bought many pocket notebooks from a local shop but I ended up using them less than I imagined though I do have it near me but I don't end up writing on it. Personally I have found recently that Excalidraw is really good in terms of drawing with one of the mouse that I have (Logitech Razer) though I also found that drawing with…

I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable.

For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note.

In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on the uploaded image and corrects any mistakes and adds some markdown formatting. I have a pretty ugly handwriting but it still does a great job and gets it like 95% right.

All this results in a lightweight (~200kb) image in chosen note in my Obsidian vault with a transcribed and edited text below it.

Generally I’m a big fan of Obsidian because it’s very intuitive and customisable. Like I also have an Excalidraw plugin there for example :)

But most things start in one of my notebooks before they get ingested into obsidian just because I like to handwrite and stay away from my phone as much as possible

As far as pencils go, I got annoyed by the “normal” pencils because their tips kept getting broken or flat and I would need to carry yet additional thing with me, a sharpener. So I looked into mechanical pencils and settled on a 0,5mm tip with HB or H leads. I ended up getting a couple of mechanical pencils to test out and then gave away most of them as gifts to friends. I really liked the Pentel Graphgear 500 for its metal grip which make it well balanced; the uni-ball kuru toga for its rotating tip that keeps the lead sharp at all times; and the Parker jotter for its full stainless steel body. They are each like 10-15€ on Amazon and I think they are all great quality and just fun tools to use

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#99

Post by jmhammond »

iammjm wrote: post #98
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insightful comment that you have written and I appreciate you writing it, I had bought many pocket notebooks from a local shop but I ended up using them less than I imagined though I do have it near me but I don't end up writing on it. Personally I have found recently that Excalidraw is really good in terms of drawing with one of the mouse that I have (Logitech Razer) though I also found that drawing with…

I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable. For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note. In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on…

Can you share the shortcut link? That sounds very useful

And if you like the Pentel GraphGear 500, you might want to check out the Pentel Sharp Kerry -- it's metal but with a post-able cap which makes it very pocketable.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#100

Post by iammjm »

jmhammond wrote: post #99
iammjm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable. For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note. In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on…

Can you share the shortcut link? That sounds very useful And if you like the Pentel GraphGear 500, you might want to check out the Pentel Sharp Kerry -- it's metal but with a post-able cap which makes it very pocketable.

Sure - here’s the shortcut:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/1be6bb1d4b3c458eb4600314805...

Some notes on using it: - Don’t input any degrees if you don’t want the image rotated (I wanted an option to also take vertical photos)

- I usually save the image directly in my obsidian vault (folder)

- In the final “share” step you have to choose the obsidian app and then import it into your vault and into the daily note or somewhere else. Or some other app of your choice.

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