I do Bullet Journal ‘rapid logging’ in a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook.
Why? My days are fast moving and I can’t always be at my computer. Plus, sometimes sitting with a blank analogue spread is a great break from the screen.
I would say in general I do a lot of my ‘note taking’ in notebooks and my ‘note making’ in Obsidian.
The most important elements of my analogue notes are put into digital forms. Pages can be scanned and put into Obsidian. Dates are uploaded to my digital calendar. Task items that are not rapidly closed in my notebook are put into my digital task manager. I have a small up arrow symbol that I put against the item in my notebook to indicate it has been uploaded to my digital platform.
I am also pushing other content into my digital platform such as Kindle highlights, PDF journals,etc. All of my digital notemaking is in Obsidian using a combination of Zettlekasten for my research and PARA for my second brain. The ‘A - archives’ in PARA is carefully curated in DevonThink. I also have my Obsidan notes indexed in DevonThink so that I can do powerful searches or use Devonthink’s AI across my entire personal knowledge management system.
With that said, the humble analogue notebook is still invaluable to me. I have tried more than once to go totally digital, but it doesn’t work for me. Tied to a keyboard and screen, even a mobile device is just not good for my head. I think I was likely always take most of my notes on paper and make most of my notes in digital.
I looked at the ideas in bullet journalling and created a project template in Scrivener but decided that the approach imposed too large a cognitive load on my mind and I never used it again. For the same reason I won’t try to replicate a bullet journal with Obsidian. As explained earlier I have fine motor control issues which makes my handwriting unreadable — even to me — and all that housekeeping for a boju is simply too much work.
I’m kind of going back and forth between a Remarkable 2 and Obsidian, and they’ve got their own strong suits, but in any case I use a simplified version of bullet journaling on either device.
In essence, I’m using a ToDo list with bullet journal items on both devices, where I don’t necessarily copy tasks between them, but rather let the rm2 handle many of the more practical in real life tasks, and let Obsidian handle more of the day-to-day stuff especially related to stuff on the computer.
Within Obsidian I’ve found great joy in Minimal’s checklists and their extension (or decorating) of tasks. This both allows me to do bullet journaling for tasks easily within Obsidian, and it allows me to use decorated tasks to note common events in my life.
This way I can very quickly jot down, even on my phone, what I’ve done during the day, and write extra stuff if I feel like it or don’t have the rm2 readily available.
If I want to write something longer, I usually do that on the rm2. Partly because of the nice feel of pen and (e)paper it gives me, but also since taking hand written notes on either rm2 (or on paper) makes me focus on that particular task without the distraction of the phone & computer with all their bells and whistles.
So in summary, my take is that handwriting on rm2 allows me to focus on the writing and sketching (and it got good text recognition if/when I want to transfer into digital notes), and Obsidian allows me to connect the dots and gather notes for the longevity in a way handwritten notes never can do. And in either case, I love using my adapted bullet journaling to keeping track of tasks (and events) during my day.
Yes! Thank you for describing exactly what I do in a much better way than I could!
For me this is true not just for external note taking (from books or meetings eg) but also when developing my own thoughts. Ideas begin in a disorganized form on paper- it’s like taking notes from what my brain tells me. Then I make them digital when they’re ready to exist in some permanent articulation.
Thank you @holroy! I was not aware of Minimal having the checklist mods, so big help. I do this on paper – such as [!] important, [>] moved ahead. I’ll also write checkboxes on paper with the action to the right (no spaces) – eg, lu (look up), read, call – and add these in my .md notes so I can search for them in Obsidian to find all my look-ups or things to read or calls to make. When done I just insert an x.
I heard this concept of ‘note taking’ and ‘note making’ somewhere in the ‘building a second brain’ community. It really helped me rationalize my workflow. I did not want to duplicate work between analogue and digital. Yet I did not want to be confined to one or the other.
There are times where I just want to grab my notebook and create a ‘collection’ on a blank page (bullet journal terminology) while sitting outside somewhere after a beautiful walk. If note making worthy I will scan it with an app on my iPhone and it will go into my digital system with additional thoughts. Same with my rapid logging. A lot of stuff I encounter in the day I need to process quickly. Most of it never makes it into my digital platform, but it is there chronologically recorded if I need to.
At the same time, the power of digital is stunning. I wished we had the cool tools we have now years ago. (I am dating myself a bit!) To be able to curate and build your own knowledge base of a life of learning and curiosity, making connections in ways that had to be done manually before in analogue systems is no less than completely amazing. I have used DevonThink for many years and it has become more powerful with every release. Now to be to able to make markdown notes, make connections to other thoughts in Obisidian and share those results with DevonThink alongside my archives takes things to yet another level.
Thanks everyone for the discussion and examples here. I use a paper note book (with a quasi bullet journal method) as a capture tool day to day, as:
my working context changes from location to location,
devices are not always practicable
I write in multiple directions and frequently in a mindmappish way
If I am in a stable location, with device available, I capture notes directly to obsidian, or when travelling in the car I use a Siri shortcut to take notes into a “working note” in obsidian.
I appreciate the multiple styles and approaches you have demonstrated, as finding a way to link the two and know where to find stuff in analogue form has been an ongoing question for me.
I do my reading and annotating, project management and meeting notes, calendars and time-blocking as well as journalling and catching of fleeting thoughts on an e-ink tablet that has handwriting conversion. This means that all is in one place and easily exportable while having the advantage of handwriting (I experimented and researched a lot with handwriting vs. typing and decided I need both in different phases of thinking processes).
Obisidian I use for idea development, I go in there to think, make connections and write, so I keep it uncluttered from stream of consciousness-style writing which I do a lot on the tablet. The step of importing from tablet to Obisdian already forces me to distill and condense.
Since the tablet is basically just for reading and writing (no apps except Kindle reader, no games or fancy colors and only a very basic and slow browser), and since Obisidian is kept for only my idea and knowledge development, both environments are kind of distraction free which helps my ADHD brain.
In the summers I am outside working at a botanical garden. In the winters I cross country ski. I keep a Rhodia Wirebound A6 Dotted Notepad and pencil in my back pocket to capture thoughts.
For night time thought capture, I use a diction app on an iPhone. Several of these apps transcribe to text. I suppose there are ways of automagically getting these transcriptions into a vault, but that rabbit hole is for another day.
I gleaned much from this discussion, particularly those four color pens.
I keep a notebook for actual journaling. I prefer the flow of the pen on paper for that. The kinds of thoughts that emerge when I’m journaling are rarely the kind I want to revisit or build on, so I rarely need them in my overall notes collection, which means it’s not a big deal to just copy them into Obsidian on that rare occasion.
Apart from that, I use paper for either capturing notes on the go that will be transferred in later, and/or for keeping my calendar/to-do list. The calendar/to-do list also rarely intersects with Obsidian, so that’s also not a big deal. On the rare occasion that I need to, I copy it in.
I’m transitioning to Rocketbook notebooks and index cards for capture, though, because then it’s easy to digitize them to get them onto my computer.
beware the pen part of notebook and pen. Its a rabbit hole, especially if you get into fountain pens, which are incredibly cool to write thoughts with :)
Pilot G2 enjoyer here, they almost make me want to maintain my main notes systems on paper. almost
Also another consideration I had about this topic, I don’t own a tablet so often I will use a notebook/pad to draw rough sketches if they’re needed in my Obsidian Vault to better understand a concept or algorithm. I usually just take a photo of the work (as inefficient as that is) and then I can have a physical design to show others if needed.
I use a paper planner mainly because I love fountain pens. I am still trying to decide if I want to go completely electronic. I tried Notion, but I cannot use it offline. This is a deal killer. I also use a huge calendar. I suppose one should use what works best.
My daily todos are written before or after doing them on paper. A B5 notebook made of Oxford optic paper. I use one of my fountain pens with colored ink.
On android I use Google keep, because it is fast to use.
Obsidian on android is not so useable as Google keep or other apps. Obsidian in Windows is ok.
Obsidian is used as a tool for noting things that don’t need to be printed. If I want to print them, I use MS Word.
Tables? Excel (what else - markdown? No.)
So Obsidian is used for my ink pictures, my colleagues birthdays (yes, better is google calendar…) documentations of server and software configurations, checklists (without due dates), …
Obsidian is far away from doing all things better than other specialised tools. But that does not seem to be intented at all.
I like obsidian despite its maximally cumbersome way of capturing notes. I also like to try out almost 1000 plugins for things that are already included in other applications. Yes, I also like it when plugins are highly praised in the forum, but they have not been maintained for a long time. And I like the forum that offers one or more suitable solutions for almost every matter of course.
Several nights ago, I awoke in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep, so I reached over and grabbed what is normally a small notebook and pencil but in that moment was under a Kindle Scribe. The stylus pen fell onto my chest, and I thought “well, I’ve never used this thing to write with …”
Opened my first Scribe Notebook and started writing. The nib has a satisfying scritchyness when writing. Sorta reminds me of a good fountain pen; just enough friction and resistance to accommodate my thought and writing speed.
Next morning, I discovered that I could lasso those words and send it to myself. It transcribed my writing completely. The text was a synch to pour into Obsidian.
My late-night fleets have taken a turn for the better; fate intervened.
