How do you take notes?

[bigstick]

I've progressed from 3x5 cards held by a binder clip, to 4 generations of PDA (windows) to 2 generations of Blackberry. Now I'm tempted to go back to paper, while I can still remember how to write....

What's your mainline for business?

[Yushiro]

A notebook. I have a Moleskine clone but that gets used for personal notes. Insurance companies are very kind in that they provide notebook diaries which are perfect for note taking during meetings. Pity they're not that Fountain Pen friendly. Still, it works for me

[Gruder]

Legal pad in a Saddleback folio. I also have a half-size folio & pads that I use on occasion.

[jjjackso]

moleskine ruled notebook and whatever fountain pen i feel like that day.

[DFrancis]

Notebook or steno pad and pen, it's fast & easy and if you need to type then out later it helps you review them.

[Alacrity59]

I use pads of canary paper. I keep related notes together with fold back clips. Important notes get clipped into file folders.

[BEAR DEN]

I carry a moleskin and FP with me pretty much everywhere now.

[Mr. Imperial]

Moleskin for special lectures, my Mac for normal class lectures.

[thunderball]

I don't find myself having to take notes much these days but when I do it's with my Lamy Safari in a little Moleskine pocket notebook. At work it's on a Rhodia notepad.

[Dennard]

Moleskin or notepad are my two most common options.

[13ALPHA]

heavy duty cordura zip pouch which holds pens, pencils and a write in the rain note book, 5x7ish.

[Emmett]

Usually a notebook, but I notice there's no poll option for "napkin". :lol:

[Uncle Erik]

8.5" x 11" yellow legal pads. Typically with a Parker 51 filled with Noodler's Blue.

On rare occasion, I'll use the iPhone's notepad app, but only in a pinch.

I'll consider digital note taking when (or if) I ever get the flexibility to append small notes next to other points and can shuffle around as easily as I can with paper.

[TimmyBoston]

I just use a plain ole tablet.

[C Reed]

Todo's appointments and contacts in the iPhone, every thing else I just remember, or I have my intern write it down if I can't think of anything better for her to do, or I make voice recordings and have her transcribe them. I can't remember the last time I wrote any thing longer then a check.

[fidjit]

All my appointments are in Outlook and in my Windows Mobile 6 phone.

But there just something about scribble notes and diagrams you can't do on an electronic device.

My Filofax ( week to 2 pages ) is used as a to do list ( and to collect miscellaneous paper and bits and bobs )

[Barbash]

I keep a notepad with me and then at the end of the day I put everything in to Outlook.

[thebikingengineer]

Used to use a palm pilot (or similar) but I find myself moving back towards writing things down. I blame this on fountain pens and my move towards more tailored clothing which causes my PDA/phone to be less handy at any given time (in my jacket versus my pants, jacket hung up across the room).

[SRock]

Legal pad in a Saddleback folio.

This is exactly what I do! :thumbup1:

[valmara1971]

Usually a notebook, but I notice there's no poll option for "napkin". :lol:

Nor for "post it" note like me :lol:

[Alec79]

No option for "back of old cigarette packet":001_huh:

[xriley]

8.5" x 11" yellow legal pads. Typically with a Parker 51 filled with Noodler's Blue.

On rare occasion, I'll use the iPhone's notepad app, but only in a pinch.

I'll consider digital note taking when (or if) I ever get the flexibility to append small notes next to other points and can shuffle around as easily as I can with paper.

Microsoft makes One Note that does allow a good bit of flexibility for note taking.

I find paper works the best for me.

[Sullybob]

I use a note pad, and only use one side of the paper. Using one side allows me to easily go back and add more notes, corrections or thoughts.

[Stubblefield]

Wax tablet and scribe.


I use reporter notebooks made by Ampad, 4" x 8", dirt cheap at Staples. Most of my notes are on the fly, things I'll need to remember for later, results of meetings, things like that. Nothing for posterity.

More serious writing--stories, presentations--are done on a legal pad. I refuse to use a computer for note-taking; pencil and paper yield superior results (for me).

[DougK]

Pen or pencil and paper worked fine for me through four years of college and for most of my professional career; I see no reason to change now. If I need my notes in electronic form, I can always type them up after the meeting, lecture, or whatever. I also find that when I'm trying to listen to something and take notes, a roomful of people clacking away on laptop keyboards is highly annoying.

[funkyb]

When I was in college, the profs would go pretty fast and near the end of my degree an entire lecture could be spent deriving a single equation. To maximize my ability to look back as I was frantically writing, I ended up using two legal pads, side-by-side, writing one page then moving to the other pad then back etc.

This way the prior page of notes was always visible as I wrote the next page and cut down on page-flipping noise. After class I'd compile them into a single stack and staple it. Sounds odd I know, but worked very well for me.

[bigstick]

Usually a notebook, but I notice there's no poll option for "napkin". :lol:

that's because gentlemen are presumed to use LINEN napkins, and only a cad would scribble on them

[bigstick]

No option for "back of old cigarette packet":001_huh:

I'd forgotten them, as a ex-smoker. I did once use them a lot, pre-file card days. I remember now that Export A 25 packs actually had lines on the slider for your convenience. But now I am violently anti-tobacco, having lost 3 family members to its various diseases. So that's out of my poll, anyway. You can always start your own!

[bigstick]

When I was in college, the profs would go pretty fast and near the end of my degree an entire lecture could be spent deriving a single equation. To maximize my ability to look back as I was frantically writing, I ended up using two legal pads, side-by-side, writing one page then moving to the other pad then back etc.

This way the prior page of notes was always visible as I wrote the next page and cut down on page-flipping noise. After class I'd compile them into a single stack and staple it. Sounds odd I know, but worked very well for me.

I like it. It wouldn't have worked at my university though. They gave us those silly lecture seats with the swivel-up arms, barely large enough for a standard scribbler.

[Mr. Imperial]

I like it. It wouldn't have worked at my university though. They gave us those silly lecture seats with the swivel-up arms, barely large enough for a standard scribbler.

Seriously, who designs the seating in lecture halls? Right-handed oompa-loompas?

[RazorPete]

I dont work in a job where I need to impress people with my note materials. As a matter of fact, I find that a buck fifty spiral notepad (http://www.cometsupply.com/pm/MEA06542/r/gg/) and a buck fifty pilot G2 pen (http://www.walgreens.com/store/catalog/Pens-and-Pencils/G2-Retractable-Gel-Ink-Rolling-Ball-Pen/ID=prod17421&navCount=1&navAction=push-product?V=G&ec=frgl_&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=sku317421) work just fine for me.
:thumbup1:

[DE Shaver]

I take notes with a notepad, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

[ajkimmins]

When I was in college, the profs would go pretty fast and near the end of my degree an entire lecture could be spent deriving a single equation. To maximize my ability to look back as I was frantically writing, I ended up using two legal pads, side-by-side, writing one page then moving to the other pad then back etc.

This way the prior page of notes was always visible as I wrote the next page and cut down on page-flipping noise. After class I'd compile them into a single stack and staple it. Sounds odd I know, but worked very well for me.

That is a great idea!!!!! If I ever go back I'll have to remember that!!

For me, I started putting notes in an HP Ipaq when I got it 7 years ago. Used it for little notes through college till it died. But over the last year and a half have gone back to the Moleskine and fountain pen. Don't even use my Blackberry for notes at all!

[Sullybob]

When I was in college, the profs would go pretty fast and near the end of my degree an entire lecture could be spent deriving a single equation. To maximize my ability to look back as I was frantically writing, I ended up using two legal pads, side-by-side, writing one page then moving to the other pad then back etc.

This way the prior page of notes was always visible as I wrote the next page and cut down on page-flipping noise. After class I'd compile them into a single stack and staple it. Sounds odd I know, but worked very well for me.

That sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I like writing on one side of the paper that way I can add notes to myself on the blank side.

[bigstick]

Seriously, who designs the seating in lecture halls? Right-handed oompa-loompas?

Graduates (in the bottom fifth) of architectural schools, alas, and their sodden mechanical engineering friends (knew a few of these, as well.)

[bigstick]

"sherpa of shaving". I like that even better than "razor rajah". I am a sucker for alliteration, and I don't even have any Anglo-Saxon in me!

[Legion]

What, no option for "back if my hand"?

[C Reed]

What, no option for "back if my hand"?

A client came into the studio today and laid out some guidelines and the concept for an editorial to be shot next month, we kicked around location ideas and talked about stylists and got some of the details hammered out. After he left, I started emailing some of the people we had talked about using and had to ask my assistant/ studio intern for her notes, she rolled up her left sleeve and had taking the entire hour and a half meetings notes on her forearm, I was shocked. Apparently she has not used a piece of paper the whole time she has worked with me (stating in November), she writes things on her arm, types them up, then washes them off, does the same thing with class notes and is a 4.0 student at a very prestigious art school. crazy girl.

[boomer56]

I still mostly use notebooks, but then I'm one of those people who like to take notes. Probably a dying breed, with all the digital options now available :)

A neat thread, thanks!

Boomer

[bigstick]

A client came into the studio today and laid out some guidelines and the concept for an editorial to be shot next month, we kicked around location ideas and talked about stylists and got some of the details hammered out. After he left, I started emailing some of the people we had talked about using and had to ask my assistant/ studio intern for her notes, she rolled up her left sleeve and had taking the entire hour and a half meetings notes on her forearm, I was shocked. Apparently she has not used a piece of paper the whole time she has worked with me (stating in November), she writes things on her arm, types them up, then washes them off, does the same thing with class notes and is a 4.0 student at a very prestigious art school. crazy girl.

Tiny writing? BIG forearms? A bit of both? Show her some Levenger storyboard pads, see if she has an interest.

[bigstick]

I still mostly use notebooks, but then I'm one of those people who like to take notes. Probably a dying breed, with all the digital options now available :)

A neat thread, thanks!

Boomer

Yes, Boomer. Very neat. I've had a few careers, each with different needs for note-taking and different environments to do it in. I'm now considering one more switch, with yet another paradigm of notation; hence the poll. I'm finding it informative.
When the lab got its first Apple IIe back in '84, it was promised to bring forth the paperless society. The guy a year ahead of me wrote his thesis in '87 on a terminal direct to the mainframe, using TXTED, which required a 100 page manual of Unix command structure. I wrote mine on a 128K Mac I the following year, using Corel Word (it was not for PCs in those days, they had WordPerfect instead.) I wrote it at the keyboard, a complete departure from my usual style for papers, of writing longhand then editing at the typewriter. (I was a 60 wpm touch-typist on a manual, having had courses). Today, I fumble badly on computer keyboards, most likely because they are a different size and shape from the Underwoods and Royals I learned on. I learn quickly, but re-learn only by dint of long, hard slogging.
Thanks for listening.....

[airplanedoc]

If I take notes it is on a legal pad, but then only I can decrypt what is written. Which is usually why I am taking the notes.

So I usually delegate if they are to be transcribed or deceminated later.

[SliceOfLife]

My notes are bad and usually illegible, but I stick to a notebook. Generally I find I don't even reference my notes, so I often just don't bother. Half my classes they rip the notes right out of the book, the other half... well, I just suck at taking notes so even digging through the book is a better option.

[Gruder]

My notes are bad and usually illegible, but I stick to a notebook. Generally I find I don't even reference my notes, so I often just don't bother. Half my classes they rip the notes right out of the book, the other half... well, I just suck at taking notes so even digging through the book is a better option.

Yes, it's work, but may I respectfully submit that learning to take notes hones your focus on what's important in any given presentation/meeting, and will be an incredibly valuable skill after college if you end up in any sort of job where meetings are involved. It also forces you to pay better attention to what's being said, thus further improving retention. I acknowledge that some professors just recite the book, but most don't. Some even go to great lengths to ensure that their tests cover both book and lecture material. :shifty: If you make the decision to force yourself to take better notes, you will. Good luck!

[bigstick]

I agree with Chad. At least for me, and many I went to school with, the act of writing it down as you listened helped retain what was heard. Questions in the margin could not be forgotten to be asked when the prof drew breath after a long exposition.
We did have one prof who said the same thing every single year, but only the one. Physical Chemistry was his subject, and there was land-office business in his notes from previous years. He was absolutely verbatim. What a laugh. He had other personality problems as well, not appropriate to this forum.
To this day, if I don't write it down, I likely won't remember it. The sad part is that often I'm writing on scraps or the proverbial napkin, and it's a crap-shoot as to whether it makes it back to my desk or not. This is something that needs more organisation. The current attempt is a Cambridge half-page spiral-bound with a fold-over closure. I like the format, but the paper (perforated) is too thin for FP work. And I would very much like to go back to a fountain pen.

[ajkimmins]

To this day, if I don't write it down, I likely won't remember it. The sad part is that often I'm writing on scraps or the proverbial napkin, and it's a crap-shoot as to whether it makes it back to my desk or not. This is something that needs more organisation. The current attempt is a Cambridge half-page spiral-bound with a fold-over closure. I like the format, but the paper (perforated) is too thin for FP work. And I would very much like to go back to a fountain pen.

Exactly why I went to the Moleskine. Looks a lot better, has a ribbon page marker. As I move farther in I can dog ear the earlier pages that I'm sure I will go back to. Looking at some "Book-darts" for that. Then I know that I have something that will make it to the desk, or home.

There are also a lot of GTD (Getting Things Done) hacks out there!!

[johnmrson]

Although I have a Blackberry and a PDA, I still take notes using a notepad in a nice leather A4 compendium. I've noticed over the last year or so that my hand writing has been getting pretty sloppy so I think I need to go back to writing out lots of lines for homework so I can then read what I've written.
I generally use a rollerball instead of my usual fountain pen when taking notes in a meeting because for me, the rollerball keeps up with fast writing alot better than my fountain pen.

[ada8356]

Cornell method on Levenger Pads and paper. Levenger 3 x 5 for quick stuff.

Evernote to store and index most everything. (evernote.com)

[bigstick]

[QUOTE=....I generally use a rollerball instead of my usual fountain pen when taking notes in a meeting because for me, the rollerball keeps up with fast writing alot better than my fountain pen.[/QUOTE]

Really? I took most of my college notes with a FP. I find I write the same speed with either implement (not blindingly fast, so I used a shorthand notation). This of course necessitated writing them out that evening in longhand (and extra memorizing took place.) Still, I trended to ballpoint for the simple reason of not smearing ink all over the damn place and reduced print-thru to the other side.

Maybe it's the failing memory of an old fart, but it seems to me that today's paper is, not necessarily thinner, but more absorbent? translucent? than it was in the seventies. I could experiment. I'm pretty sure I have some remnants of college stationery around the house in a box, somewhere......what a friggin packrat.

[Luscombe]

I take a fair amount of notes in my job as a manager for a design build construction firm. I always have two fountain pens and use FP friendly paper from Staples. My all time favorite FP is a Vintage Parker 51 stainless flighter with a fine nib, second favorite is any Vintage Pelikan.

For personal notes or projects, I like to use the FP and moleskin or FP friendly bound books, ruled or grid. Never had a FP not keep up with my writing speed. Have had some skip but that indicdated a feed problem and needed repair.

I tried to go electronic with a Palm Pilot, Handspring, etc. and microsoft notes and now an IPhone. I do use it to keep notes, passwords, etc. in one place but really enjoy writing notes with a FP.

I have pretty much stopped carrying regular pens.
Gary

[Walt Whitman]

Moleskine Weekly Pocket for appointment and tasks.

Moleskine Pocket for longer notes, more intense notetaking, etc.

[boomer56]

Yes, Boomer. Very neat. I've had a few careers, each with different needs for note-taking and different environments to do it in. I'm now considering one more switch, with yet another paradigm of notation; hence the poll. I'm finding it informative.
When the lab got its first Apple IIe back in '84, it was promised to bring forth the paperless society. The guy a year ahead of me wrote his thesis in '87 on a terminal direct to the mainframe, using TXTED, which required a 100 page manual of Unix command structure. I wrote mine on a 128K Mac I the following year, using Corel Word (it was not for PCs in those days, they had WordPerfect instead.) I wrote it at the keyboard, a complete departure from my usual style for papers, of writing longhand then editing at the typewriter. (I was a 60 wpm touch-typist on a manual, having had courses). Today, I fumble badly on computer keyboards, most likely because they are a different size and shape from the Underwoods and Royals I learned on. I learn quickly, but re-learn only by dint of long, hard slogging.
Thanks for listening.....

Bigstick,

It's so odd and personal, how someone goes about recording information for later retrieval. At risk of dating myself, I was a long way from the workforce in 84, but have still found that usually writing out my notes in narrative form means I never have to look at them again, the process of writing them out is what helps me to remember them. Typing just doesn't have the same effect (though I will admit to being a child of the keyboard and have respectable typing skills). I've been in more than a few meetings where I've been glanced at as though I were carving into a stone tablet...I reckon that's not all bad. It's often nice to have the people in accounting wondering what I'm doing rather than paying full attention to the briefing.

Best,
Boomer

[bigstick]

I never considered that aspect before, Boomer. I think my clients worry enough when I start jotting a note in the middle of their exposition: they usually crane to see what it might be....
but on that subject, one thing I did consciously learn to do was read upside down, so I always knew what my supervisor/interviewer/student was writing. I've caught a few of the latter not paying attention that way. Improves my reputation for omniscience, which ain't a bad thing....

I'm beginning to think we need a daughter thread on the psychology and physiology of writing, we are rapidly approaching the weeds here....:laugh:

[Confuzius]

Depending on the scenario I prefer to use my laptop, I type faster than I write, and it's way more legible, but if it's something like math with formulas I'll write it out on looseleaf then transcribe it into OpenOffice (which has a great formula editor).

For work I use a letter sized pad of graph paper or a 150pg Hilroy spiral.

[BrianL]

Small spiral notepad in my pocket and a Parker jotter gets the job done for me.

[JPM]

Even though I do most things on a laptop or my phone, I still like to right in a notepad for notes during a meeting, etc.

[shmeegs]

I have a folder that contains a notepad and a pocket for the stack upon stack of phone numbers, address, inmate requests, and the such. I do have a stack of scrap paper on my desk to jot down notes from the phone calls I get, but I try to make a big effort to turn those little notes into something more important on my computer.

[mark the shoeshine boy]

It depends on what part of my job you are talking about.

I carry a levenger pocket briefcase with 3x5 cards. These are great for the mobility, when I am talking with a customer on the lot or when I need to jot a note to pass to a person.

Depending upon the circumstance, priority and urgency, it may go into my daily planner (www.plannerpads.com (http://www.plannerpads.com)) or my CRM software for customer follow up.

(I used Maximizer software for years to do what CRM software is doing today.)

I know I use alot of paper even though I am a Internet Manager of a dealership, you would think I would be more techy...but I'm not...

[flabajaba2213]

Notepad and a ball point pen. Thanks to law school, I've developed my own version of short hand. Couple that with horrible handwriting due to a birth defect, and it is the only way that I can write and still be able to read it/write quickly enough to keep up.

Of course, no one else can read it, but I think of it as a form of encryption.

[texbilly]

Seriously, who designs the seating in lecture halls? Right-handed oompa-loompas?

As another lefty, that brings back (frustrating) memories!

[shmeegs]

I (a lefty) remember the awkward ass seating you had to do where within 20 minutes your back ached like a mother.

[pauls51]

Being on the edge of Gen X (yes I am ashamed to admit that I'm at the beginning of Gen Y), I have always writen with a ballpoint pen (mainly bics!). However I have recently found a new appreciation for Fountain Pens and as such have began looking at acquiring my first one...

So at the moment i'm taking notes using a crappy bic pen and an A5 notepad (at my work, we no longer use T accounts!!! Its all computers!) which is soon to be upgraded to an FP and moleskin.

[Wendy]

I write on anything handy, very rarely do I use my phone for notes.

[bigstick]

so I bought a few of this and that to try:
in the bomber jacket I have 3x5 cards from OD on an appropriate aluminum clipboard that slips easily in and out.
in the shirt pocket is a 3x5 Rhodia squared notebook
on the desk is a Cambridge Limited spiral bound,about A5 in size, with a fold-over clamp. This has micro-perf lined pages.

When I've played with them a while, I'll start a new thread in the speakeasy to discuss. [no snoring or yawning out there, already.]

[Snappy Lunch]

Daytimer pocket with a CARAN d'ACHE 849 Original. That pen stays in the pen loop.

[infotech]

I use whatever the environment calls for. I take notes on my Blackberry when I'm out and about. In meetings I use a notebook. I'm starting to get into developing so I use Microsoft OneNote to keep track of changes I make to programs.

I also keep a notebook on my desk for jotting quick thoughts and notes from phone calls or other things work related. No organization at all - I just use a page until it's full and go on to the next.

[TyJayden]

My laptop is almost always with me, and it's my preferred method of taking notes in school, with the exceptions of Math classes and the occasional drawing of molecules and formulas in a note book in Chem.

[auk1124]

Legal pads. A hell of a lot of em. I just finished up a pretty complex two-day jury trial and I had at least 7 or 8 different pads going for different things.

[renoles]

For business - steno pad

Personal - varies some, but typically a notebook, often a Moleskine

[VR6ofpain]

Steno pads.

http://buyerzone.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/to-do-list.jpg

[JaDo]

I typically use legal pads to take notes. However, my notes are usually discursive and I will type them into text file in order to clean them up and make better use of them, as well as to add anything that I recall but didn't write down. Most of what I do is electronic/digital, so I will set up a file folder for whatever project I'm working on and dump into it any associated files, along with the text file notes.

[TxPhoto09]

A child of the keyboard generation myself, I've been typing long enough to be pretty proficient at it (I can compose at around 50 wpm if pressed). For that reason, if I'm attending a meeting or something I'm going to be expected to summarize in any kind of detail (including quotations), I'll put it on my laptop. As someone said earlier in the thread, Microsoft has a pretty fair program called OneNote, which IMHO doesn't get enough attention. If I find something for a Mac, I'll be much happier.

For other meetings, quick interviews, etc., it's the classic reporter's notebook (4x8, spiral bound at the top, ruled) and, usually, a roller ball -- fountain pen when I have one handy.

[professorchaos]

With the awesome power of my brain. For three years, I've been bringing the same notepad to meetings for appearance's sake. After the meeting, I brain dump into the computer as needed.

[Groat]

As someone said earlier in the thread, Microsoft has a pretty fair program called OneNote, which IMHO doesn't get enough attention. If I find something for a Mac, I'll be much happier.

I've never used OneNote, but there's a notes function in Office 2011 for the Mac. It allows you to take down notes quickly and efficiently, and perhaps is similar.

[TxPhoto09]

I've never used OneNote, but there's a notes function in Office 2011 for the Mac. It allows you to take down notes quickly and efficiently, and perhaps is similar.

Hmmmm, the most recent Office for Mac I have is 2008. Maybe I should investigate 2011.

[Rossmeister]

With this little book and pen:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/Rossmeister/mac10.jpg

[tvldatsi]

voted for notepad, love using a laptop, but I broke mine and they are really too cumbersome to take everywhere

[mdex]

I have been using a Livescrbe Smartpen (http://www.livescribe.com) for a year or so. It isn't the nicest pen I have ever used, but the ability to have all my notes and any meetings audio recorded that I want on the computer is great.

Marc