Weekly Update #007

Hello all,

I am a pretty obsessive notetaker, to the point where my notes can get a little confusing. For example, I have three physical notebooks: a lined notebook for journaling, a dot notebook for planning, and a sketch notebook for... well, sketching. In addition to this, however, I also try to use digital notes when I can. I of course have my "knowledge docs", short cheat sheets on various topics, that are available on Notion. And those cheat sheets are, for the most part, my real notes on those topics. But then I also have OTHER notes, my "working notes" so to speak, in Obsidian. And these notes ALSO include planning and journaling pieces inside! In other words, I'm really undecisive here.

There are benefits to both physical and digital notes. With physical notes, there's a tangibility aspect that's really nice. For example, I've been keeping up a journal since around 2019, and it shows -- I have a big stack of journals with my notes inside them, and I intend on making the stack even bigger. On the other hand, it feels like digital notes can be a little more... "ephemeral". Physical books stay with you pretty much forever, whereas digital books get deleted when space is required. That sort of thing.

On the other hand, you can make the argument that digital notes are much more practical. There's a wide range of features that are both purely beneficial in comparison to physical notes (backlinking) and other stuff that is just pretty darn neat (graph view!). I would also argue that it is easier to take your digital notes with you than physical ones -- you are always going to have a laptop, tablet, or phone around with you, but having a carrying around a notebook solely for having notes feels a little overboard. Plus, it's pretty easy for me to just pull out my phone and type something in when inspiration strikes -- I would argue not so much the same with physical stuff.

As of this point, my stance is as follows: I would like to be digital exclusive, though it is hard to ween off my physical notes. I don't want to quit cold turkey -- I'd rather just keep the physical notes going until I run out of books (not buying new ones, of course) and then once that happens, I can switch to an Obsidian/Notion set up and perhaps scan in the journal entries so that I can still keep everything organized.

I... I suppose this post isn't an update at all, isn't it? Well, I hope you got something out of it at least. My next weekly update should be full of info on the Boys & Girls release, but things aren't quite ready yet. Look forward to it!