: How to handle multiple notebooks? For the last 15 years I'm keeping some kind of writer's notebook. Everything I come across, and is seemingly important, goes into the notebook: Ideas Conversations

@Karen856

Posted in: #Notes #Paper

For the last 15 years I'm keeping some kind of writer's notebook. Everything I come across, and is seemingly important, goes into the notebook:


Ideas
Conversations
Writings (primarily on the road)
Journal entries
Todo list
Calendar and Appointments
Facts
Quotes
Lists for everything. Books to read, books to buy, movies to watch, gift ideas.
Scribbles
Letter/Email drafts


Since I'm also a software developer my notebooks contain further:


Class/Object/Sequence diagrams
Mathematical equations and formulas
etc., etc.


Over the years I've collected about 15 notebooks. Full of information. I guess some of you will also have that many (or even more) notebooks. So my question is how can I stay on top of this information?

Assuming that I'm writing a story today. How do I know that a conversation I preserved in 2002 can be important for my current writing? Because there are currently only 15 notebooks in my desk drawer, I can flip through them and eventually find something that is useful for me now. But this will have a limit. I think 25 or 30 notebooks will be already too many to flip through. Besides that it is not really research, rather stumbling across.

How can I handle the various bits and pieces that I record? Can I digitize these notebooks, either through typing or scanning? Or should I maintainin some kind of index?

Although I'm a pen and paper-Lover and I would really like to hear about some paper-based systems, I'm open to hearing about digital workflows as well.

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@Alves689

@Alves689

To address these issues, I have had to become less pen and paper. I use a stylus to write on a tablet with handwriting recognition. This is the best in between solution to the problems. From your past writings, scanning and doing OCR can be probably the only way to salvage the important information. Because trying to remember or scan it all is going to be hard. Making a library out of it is a science and art. And OCR is not going to be perfect. From the digitized version you can search and sort.

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@Murphy332

@Murphy332

I never have maintained these sort of notebooks but have done plenty of sorting with my study notes. I suggest you use colored Post-It's and colored bookmarks. Color-code your work. Stick one on each page and write the topic on it. Identifying colors is easier than reading a huge index. And when you start with a new notebook, divide the book into sections and as far as possible write into that particular section only. This way when you need to refer to it later, you will have to search only a small portion. You could even buy 6-in-1 (or similar) notebooks that are already sectioned into different colors. Hope this helps!

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