[gorgoiler]

What a lovely piece of writing. It’s good advice.

Index / record cards and a binder clip work wonders for me. I used to write in a notebook but the anxiety of losing it is real, especially when reaching the end of a notebook filled with precious knowledge.

80% of read-usage was for either the current day or the previous day. Deeper history is very useful but often done at my desk. You can keep a rolling N day history with a binder clip. Having pieces of card is very useful too. Rip em up, fold em, flick em when you need to give an impromptu demonstration of how TCP works*.

Get a Fujitsu ScanSnap too: digitising index cards is much easier than digitising bound notebooks, and it now means you can access your note taking history from any device — essential for all the notes that didn’t get converted into project manager tasks but which need to be referenced, retrospectively.

Paper only works for private task tracking so it won’t work for everything but it’s the best tool for the top of the getting-things-done funnel.

*I am a high school CS teacher, former FAANGSWE.

[kstrauser]

I second the ScanSnap. I have mine scan directly into DEVONthink, and have been in the “scan and shred” camp for a long time now. If paper comes into my hands I think I may possible want keep, I scan it in. Then, everything that I don’t specifically need to keep original copies of gets shredded.

It's the only way to fly.