It started innocently enough.
In my earlier career, working on UX projects for Fortune 500 companies, I needed a way to keep track of all the insights, facts, diagrams, players, requirements, and plain old to-do's.
So I returned to a habit I thought I had left behind: Taking notes in a physical notebook. Now, 20-mumble years on, I am never without a notebook. I take notes on everything: Books, podcasts, meetups, conferences, Twitter threads, everything. And I have a whole system of physical notebooks with handwritten notes.
Why?
The research is long in: Handwritten notes make your brain remember concepts better. When you activate the hand-brain connection to write, you process information more deeply. You can condense, restate, annotate, illustrate, and cross-reference other entries. Most importantly, you will remember information better. When you talk, you'll have more substantive, better structured things to say from memory.
My current notebook lineup includes:
Morning pages notebook
Daily mind dump...automatic writing in a big, cheap spiral bound notebook like you had in the eighth grade. Get your swirling thoughts down on paper so focused thinking can begin.
UX work notebook
Big, sturdy Rhodias. Always at hand. Every note & to-do goes here. With these handwritten records, I can reconstruct the memory of a meeting, utterance, or decision going back months (if you choose to keep them). 1st IA, flow diagrams, and wireframes happen here. https://rhodiapads.com/collections_spiral_4colorbook.php
Professional/Industry notebook
Small, softback Leuchtturm handbooks (fit in any bag or coat pocket) for professional training notes, meetups, conferences, speaker notes, business book notes and especially deconstructed podcasts. Indexed and saved when full. https://www.leuchtturm1917.us/notebook-classic.html
Personal journal and commonplace book
Small, hardback Leuchtturm notebooks that house my own journal entries. It's also a commonplace book: A copied record of anything good from your reading, watching or anyplace else. Memorable quotes, pithy tweets, excerpts from fiction and non-fiction, recipes, whole poems. Indexed and saved when full. Writer Ryan Holliday says more: https://ryanholiday.net/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book/
Pro Tip: Make an Index for Your Notebook
Save 4-5 blank pages at the front of each notebook. Label them "Index"
Number the pages of your notebook. Or buy pre-numbered notebooks
When your notebook is full, review the pages for what's good. These will go in your index
Give each important topic or concept a descriptive line on an Index page. Add the page number or range
If the topic appears in multiple places in your notes, keep the single line item for it in the index. Add additional page numbers or page ranges next to it
Later, to find a note, you only need to scan the index, not flip through all the pages