Electronic indexing system for your paper notes
“After many years of wrestling with how best to connect my paper notebooks to my digital data, I’ve come up with a simple system that works for me, and that I believe could work for you if you’re so inclined.”
Some interesting ideas going on here.
The Study: Issue #32 — Keeping a Commonplace Book – The Study
It’s not a journal, bullet or otherwise. It’s not your collection of morning pages. It’s not a stream of consciousness rambling of your thoughts. A commonplace book is deliberate. It’s curated.
longtime friend and contributor to this site, Harry Marks, has a brief but good primer on starting and keeping a commonplace book in his latest newsletter.
Building My Bullet-Journal-Based Hybrid Productivity System – The Sweet Setup
There’s something about using a nice notebook and a fancy fountain pen that inspires joy in a way even the most beautifully designed application can’t. At its core, a screen is simply a slab of glass – cold, sterile, and impersonal. During this pandemic, I’ve found myself drawn to the siren song of analog more than ever before.
The wonderful Flair felt tip pen / Boing Boing
I always keep a couple of Flairs in my sketchnote kit.
Well-Read Life™: Bring Your Own Pen—The New Normal, Again
You’re doing it both for your sake and for the sake of others, a small but reassuring addition to our armor for staying healthy.
Handwriting is unique. It’s personal. It’s individual to you. It communicates more than just the words and ink. It communicates your humanity in ways that type never could.
A reply I wrote to someone who asked why I even further might advocate journaling by hand versus typing and printing.
Don’t think of your journaling being solely for you. Think of it being for those you leave behind. Which would they rather have? Which will they be more likely to cherish and keep?
In these historic times, many people have turned to journalling as a way of keeping account for the next generation. So when the grandkids ask what it was like to live through the 2020 Pandemic, you’ll be able grab your pipe, sit them on your lap, and regale them with yarns spun from your own written words.
I see so many that I know discussing how important their digital journalling app of choice has become for this purpose and… my heart sinks. I feel so sad for them. The reason….
None of these apps will be around.
Likely not in 10 years. Certainly not in 20 or 30 or 50.
Take it from a 52 year old who has lost more writing in his 30 years of computing than he has been able to save. The reason? They are on ZIP Disks in my basement using Clarisworks or it was into a BBS system that died silently or they are on a Colorado 250MB Tape Backup of my first computer (A home-brew 486/50 PC) or…
Therefore, let me repeat: THAT APP WILL NOT EXIST NOR WILL ANYTHING YOU TYPE INTO IT.
The history of computing has copious evidence to back me up on that bold statement. The evidence shows that Day One (who I will note bills themselves as a “journal for life”) will likely be long gone in 20 years (Go ahead and bookmark this post and come see me then if I’m wrong). Maybe when the company dies they’ll give you an exit plan to save your work or maybe they won’t. Even if you still have the files twenty years from now you won’t have a working app to open them with. Like those ZIP Disks in my basement, your best hope will be to have some old computers with the right app to be able to open them up and print them out.
Yes. Print. On paper. Why? Because, unlike your app, paper has a proven track record for lasting thousands of years if the conditions are right.
I still have the first piece of writing I ever published as a second grader in my elementary school newsletter because my Mom saved her mimeographed copy of it and gave it to me a few years ago. And, you know what? Unlike any of the digital formats I mentioned, I’ll be able to show it to my grandkids and they’ll be able to show it to theirs.
So please, I implore you, if you insist on journalling using any digital tool, please also regularly print what you are writing. Stick it somewhere cool and dry. Even print a couple of copies and put one somewhere offsite for extra security. If you really want to preserve this important history, and you really care about it, you’ll print it.
Or, you could save yourself a lot of trouble and just simply get a good notebook and write by hand. Use good paper. Use good ink. It’ll last for generations. The Library of Congress has a good guide on paper preservation worth checking out. But, even with none of those things, most paper should last hundreds of years if undisturbed.
Too Many Words about Blackwing Pencils
My friend Robert van Vliet takes us on a deep dive into the modern Blackwing releases. He’s a true pencil nerd and has… Opinions about each one he’s tried.
World Sketchnote Day 2020! — Sketchnote Army
Today is World Sketchnote Day. Sketchnotes were pioneered by my dear friend Mike Rhode as a way to add visual storytelling to everyday note taking in order to increase idea retention and add interest. We are encouraged to celebrate by sketchnoting something today and sharing it with folks using the hashtag #SNDay2020.
Colin Walker is Writing by Hand
“There is something unexpectedly liberating about putting pen to paper in this manner, something I’ve not felt in a long time. It was previously a struggle to choose such an option over typing on the phone but I realise that was because I had the wrong tools. I was simply trying to force the issue rather than let it happen naturally.”
Tools that you love are tools that you’ll use.