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Lab Notebooks (2020)

sambleckley.com

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Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#51

Post by Aerbil313 »

ac50hz wrote: post #47
DarkSucker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notebooks are still a great way to preserve the little details of "what the hell was I thinking?" Here here. WWIT (what was I thinking) is so valuable. I'm spending much more time now writing notes that provide context in addition to a bare description of what I did. I hate it when I look at old notes, have a million questions, and curse myself for not writing more. Also, thank you for making the point about the US…

Record keeping, for better or worse, is essential. Memories fade. Ink fades but rarely corrupts.

I grew up with the stories of real people (students and scholars of the past times) being able to memorize things by just hearing or reading them once.

Seems a forgotten thing in the modern world.

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#52

Post by melagonster »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #51
ac50hz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Record keeping, for better or worse, is essential. Memories fade. Ink fades but rarely corrupts.

I grew up with the stories of real people (students and scholars of the past times) being able to memorize things by just hearing or reading them once. Seems a forgotten thing in the modern world.

there are a lot of book teach you writing note later and give client deep impression.

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#53

Post by plg »

jstanley wrote: post #40

I've started writing a markdown file every day, with a separate heading for each project, and a tool that automatically creates an index page that says what topics (based on headings) were present each day. Apart from the format of the headings, it is deliberately informal and unstructured. I've found it very useful.

It would be great for you to share the code

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#55

Post by hodgesrm »

physicles wrote: post #48

The main problem with paper is that it's not searchable, so I've been using [0] since 2018. Each invocation just appends a timestamped line of text. I have a crontab that pops up a box every hour and I type in what I'm working on. Sometimes I'll add extra notes if I'm working through a particularly thorny problem. It's always right there on the terminal. I'd say it's saved my ass at least a dozen times over the years…

You need highlighting pens! I have a couple of them to circle anything significant--a bright circle means "this is probably interesting!" It makes searching vastly easier.

The other thing is to date every page accurately. Notes are a time series.

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#56

Post by hodgesrm »

distortionfield wrote: post #14

I recommend the Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook for this kind of stuff. It comes with spine labels and a table of contents pages in the notebook already, and the paper is extremely high quality. They're the perfect daily-use notebook, IMO.

> I recommend the Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook for this kind of stuff.

Just bought my first one last week. My previous notebook is full and I'm eager to try it out tomorrow!

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#57

Post by hodgesrm »

robertlacok wrote: post #11

A huge downside of writing this down on paper is team collaboration. Imagine that instead this is kept in a tool like Notion which the entire team can access. At first this feels incredibly uncomfortable - your notes are there for everyone to see. However it’s a massive force multiplier because often the work is picked up by someone else later on, and instead of asking you they can self-serve. It’s pretty common that…

This is a render-unto-Caesar problem. It all depends on the audience. Here's what works for me.

1. Email is good for sharable things like interview or meeting notes. It's searchable and you can dump it to Google Docs/Notion from the draft if that's appropriate. Using Gmail keeps you from trying to format it too much while writing.

2. My lab book is for me. Writing with pen/paper forces one to sort out ideas up front--not a lot but just enough for them to make sense and be readable later.

It seems as if everyone will have a different take on this.

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#58

Post by throwaway914 »

nolamark wrote: post #12
maCDzP wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven’t heard of Neo before but it looks amazing. Could you explain your process and likes/dislikes with the Neo/reMarkable?

Here is a first draft. I'll expand if I have more time and energy. Rule #1. Every thing gets a date (And more an aspiration than reality a time.) I am truely an oddball and have my own date format 2023_12Dec_26Tue_1312. Rational, when used a a corresponding file name, it sorts naturally assuming you used 0 prefix on one digit numbers. Day of week, just another memory clue to try to recall specific thought experiment.…

Neat date format :)

I use these for work within SharePoint lists:

"2023 Q3 August"

"2023 Q3 08/02"

"2023 Q3 Monthly"

"2023 Q2"

"2023"

"Weekly"

"Monthly"

"Annually"

I had an issue scheduling things for 1-off occurrences, and reoccurring. A lot of what we do is scheduled around quarters or months. This was my "best of both" because I can store the date as text, sort alphabetically, and the dated-1-off things sort correctly. The recurring stuff like weekly/monthly/annually naturally group at the bottom or top depending on the A-Z direction. It generally keeps the format of year-quarter-month/day.

Thanks for the heads-up about the NeoSmart pens! I have a remarkable 2.

Re: Lab Notebooks (2020)

#59

Post by throwaway914 »

robertlacok wrote: post #11

A huge downside of writing this down on paper is team collaboration. Imagine that instead this is kept in a tool like Notion which the entire team can access. At first this feels incredibly uncomfortable - your notes are there for everyone to see. However it’s a massive force multiplier because often the work is picked up by someone else later on, and instead of asking you they can self-serve. It’s pretty common that…

I maintain a daily email to myself in a shared mailbox. I have 3 sections:

SIGNIFICANT

  \* topic1

    \* this happened

  \* topic2
DONE

  \* This project

    \* Made this change

    \* Made another change

  \* Some training

    \* Completed this section
TODO ...

I'm in a setting where I'm incredibly temporary. I could be tasked elsewhere tomorrow. Every day I reply to my previous email and work on the draft throughout the day as my notebook. At the end of the day I send it, received in the mailbox I'm attending. I title the email "Captain's Log" and my supervisor and peers can read it, as well as the draft, whenever. This keeps them clued in on where my head is at, what I'm working on, etc. Great for performance reviews mostly. Not as convenient as something like my Remarkable tablet.

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