Pen and Paper

Another powerful technology that seems to be going out of fashion is the pen and paper (pencil is also a great option).

As covered in the 'Book' chapter, analogue techniques like the pen and paper are actually better technologies for creating and capturing ideas.

The fact that a piece of paper (or notebook) is not 'online' and one cannot easily change its contents, are actually some of its best features.

What is really important is to capture the ideas and thoughts that you have. There are also studies that shows that just the fact that you write something, will make it easier for you to remember and to process that information.

I have so many examples of situations when I started writing just some ideas, and after a couple pages, the real interesting ideas come out (due to the hyperlinked nature of how ideas are generated in the brain). What is important is the realisation that those 2nd or 3rd generation of ideas would had not been captured without the first batch of ideas and notes. I've also found that my brain retains the location of where I made some notes, and I'm able to go back to those notebooks and remember what where those ideas (even after a couple years).

These days, to keep track of what I have reviewed and processed, I have the workflow/habit or crossing-over the ideas or texts that I moved to a digital format or delegated.

The reality is that you will forget the ideas you are having today!

The only way to make sure that your future self has access to those ideas, is to capture them now!

It is great when you review your older notebooks (could be from last week or year) and not only remember an idea you had since forgotten, but you are able to expand that idea and take it to the next level.

My favourite are the Moleskin books plain A5 notebooks, since they represent a nice balance of white space and portability ( I use them everyday)

A nice side effect of having mobile phones with cameras, is that it's easy to share a picture of one of the notebook's pages.