[michaelsalim]

Was pleasantly surprised with the list. Agree with all of them. The last point about notebooks has especially been useful for me the past few year. There's just something different about using it to help you think.

Most of the time, I don't finish fleshing out an idea on paper. But the act of writing (or drawing) it somehow helps me explore new concepts faster. After that I just continue coding or whatever the next steps is. It's also useful when I want to sort or categorize different ideas/thoughts into sections.

I'd like to add that it's really nice to have a notebook always in front of you. Mine is always open & ready to be used. It sits right in the middle of my split keyboard so it's literally always in front of me.

[jemmyw]

Some people need a notebook. I don't. I've never found extra productivity from jotting things down like that. And over the years people have actually made me feel bad about that "you don't write things down? you should, it helps organise your mind" whatever. Put a pen in my hand and a doodle comes out. I have a good memory and I can usually visualize problems, and when I cannot then I use computer based drawing tools to figure it out. I've no idea why some people feel the need to almost bully over this, but I've actually pretended to note things down on paper in meetings before to avoid scrutiny.

What I'm saying is: a notebook and pen is not an essential must have tool for programming. If you use them then all power to you, but if you don't then do not feel like you're doing things incorrectly, and don't listen to people telling you otherwise.

[michaelsalim]

This definitely. Don't feel pressured to do it if it doesn't work for you.

For me the notebook isn't actually for memory. Those kind of notes are better on digital so I can access & edit them everywhere (I use notion for those). The only times I'd read what I scribbled is when I context switch and need to remember what I was doing. It's more of a scratch pad really. Figma also works well for this. Just depending on the work.

I will say that writing or pretending to write notes is almost a super power. In the same way that some people ask "you don't write things down?", I found that people tend to think I'm more disciplined or hard working when I'm on my notes.

Can't say I haven't pretended to write notes before :)

[moi2388]

If you don’t need it you don’t need it. I use it to keep track of all points during a conversation. I can remember them all just fine afterwards, but I find conversations drift away from critical points if I don’t write them down to come back to it. I never need to read anything I write down though

[reidjs]

Do you have digital notes of some kind? Even just a massive “notes.txt” file? Curious because there’s just so much stuff out there. If I don’t write it down somewhere searchable I’m doomed to repeat the mistake in the future. But I have crappy memory for this kind of stuff.

[jemmyw]

No. I think I must have a slightly better than usual memory for code and details. I didn't think about it much until a couple of years ago when someone asked for help by phone and I reeled out the file locations and the code for them to enter. They asked if I could just do it and I said no I don't have my laptop and they were somewhat impressed. But I've not asked around about it so I don't really know where that would sit relative to other people.

[anta40]

That's why Google Keep, Evernote etc were build.

[jamesfinlayson]

If nothing else I like my notebook because if I've shut everything down for the day, I can still leave a note for myself for tomorrow without having turn anything back on/log back in.