I started a “dirt notebook” • Hacker News Board

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#101

Post by jmhammond » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

iammjm wrote: post #100

jmhammond wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks! This is really neat

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#102

Post by fco356pal » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

I agree with this. I've bought two fancy notebooks in my left and they are still clean, elegant, and unused. It feels wrong scratching notes and rip pages, so I am just afraid to use it

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#103

Post by ilovetux » Mon, Jul 20, 2026, 12:34 PM UTC

I struggle with this. A kind of premature optimization. I get around it by taking really messy handwritten notes in a notebook (I guess this is called a dirt notebook, but I just call it my dirt notebook).

I get around this by making a deliberate attempt to organize my notes after I take them. I will usually try to turn them into a word doc with a lot of word art, but if they need to be in a repo or something, I will go with markdown.

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#104

Post by Imustaskforhelp » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC

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…

Thanks your overall comments and the discussion below have been good for me to read :D

Re: I started a “dirt notebook”

#105

Post by sevenseacat » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

I have the opposite problem, I can't keep a notebook neat. They all turn out just being odd random phrases in corners or at weird angles or sometimes so messy I can't read what they said because I scrawled it while listening to people bicker on a Google meet.