I read a lot of scientific literature, like journal articles on research, etc for my career. So I do a lot of reading and notetaking on a daily basis. I'm often reading things that I need to go back to later, like to cite or refer to, or that I just want to remember, to look deeper into things later.
I like taking physical notes with a pen.
It prevents staring at a screen all day, and I can easily write wherever I want to on the paper, including drawings or diagrams. It feels better, and I remember what I read and what I noted better by writing it down. I can take my reading anywhere this way, it doesn't have to be plugged in or charged or linked to a computer or laptop.
However... I also like the benefits of being able to search or tag different topics in digital formats. I usually make notes of things to go back to later, but finding it again is a pain if its physical. I often need to search for papers on a certain topic, to add as citations.
Historically I have taken notes on research papers all digitally. Recently, that isn't cutting it anymore and I want to do it physically, usually even printing out the paper so I can mark it up. But how can I search for terms, phrases, or title I want to get back to? I don't really have a solution (and there might not be one). Should I type up the short version of my notes after writing them?
I also have a small Rocketbook - a book you write in and take photos of with the free App to digitize. I got this from a research conference a while back and never really took to it.
It looks like now Rocketbook can do transcription - translating your written handwriting into digital text, which is huge. Before it was just storing the images of your notes and helping with organization. I think this is still a free feature, if I'm interpreting it right. I haven't tried it.
You can wipe off all your notes in the Rocketbook when you're done saving them, so you can use the notebook indefinitely.
I haven't decided what I want to do moving forward.
These are the things I want:
-to take notes physically with pen and paper (no tablets even)
-the ability to search for a keyword in the notes
-to not spend a ton of time translating from physical to digital
These might be mutually exclusive, I don't know.
I'm currently thinking about this set up: taking notes on papers in a dedicated notebook, with no more writing on the printed out paper itself (even if I do print it to read it). And in the notebook, tagging each page or entry with different colors or symbols or whatever so I can find things again. Only research paper notes go in this notebook, so at least its all in one place.
I'll also add I'm a big stationery nerd and love having nice pens and notebooks and all that shit, so it's really important to me to physically take notes.
Do you have any thoughts about how to set this up? How do you take notes?
lucky instar 