| Brilliant post! This system reminds me of Bullet Journaling (https://bulletjournal.com/), which I have used on and off for a long time now. Folks who have adopted Bullet Journaling have come up with some very interesting symbols to capture parts of the day (some which I have found more useful than others). I do find that any paper-based system breaks down for things that are recurring, and I have to resign and use some calendaring system to accommodate those (think changing the air-filter on the HVAC). I also feel that longer-than-a-day projects are harder to track on paper (If anyone has suggestions here I am all ears). I often find myself thinking of a project, breaking it down, then using paper to take one or two everyday till I feel like I am done. My approach to finding balance between paper and electronic is - Use paper daily (for the same reason that the OP suggest). Object permanence is real. I can't tell you how many times I just _remember_ writing something down on the left-hand side near the top that has saved my life.
- If a recurring reminder comes through, add it to the list of Todos for today (on paper)
- At the end of the day I usually end up transcribing my day into markdown notes (using https://bear.app/) Over time I have learned that not everything works well in one format (I have been thinking about getting the Remarkable but my god that's steep)—What I end up doing is "linking" from one medium to another. For example, if I start by writing an entry or a note on paper that I feel will be better described in a diagram or a code snippet I simply put a note on paper telling me to go to Bear (Since all notes are dated this is relatively easy). Or vice-versa—if I doodled out a diagram on paper, I simply put a "See notebook" in my Bear notes. Looking forward to seeing how others are doing this. |
Your process of transcribing notes into markdown is good. I prefer to think of it as extracting and summarizing, but full transcription can work well.