Huge fan of paper as well. I think Merlin Mann called it the "ultimate ubiquitous capture".
A lot of people just keep thick journals, but I like A6 cards that I compile into slim exercise books. I just capture anything that comes to mind on a card[1] and let them sit on a pile. Then, after some time, enough stuff has accumulated and I review the cards and compile them.[1]
It has the sweet spot of not having to commit to something big (meaning it circumvents the urge to make it perfect, usually preventing you from writing it down in the first place), is reasonably flexible if you use masking tape to glue in the cards (there are some books that I could take apart completely and reuse) and can be stashed and sorted easily.[2]
The other part of this that I find helpful is that using paper is faster for many things, like small UI sketches, than using a PC. I also find that writing things down makes me think about the problem, whereas I can type up notes without paying attention to what I'm doing.
Whiteboards are my preferred method for this sort of thing. The building I work in is actually awesome for this; the safety shields (mol bio lab) at the end of everyone's desks double as whiteboards and the windows are write-on-able as well.
I also know a guy who used to have a piece of whiteboard paper glued the back of his laptop so he could close it and quickly sketch something out if he needed to, his desk is also covered in the stuff.
I also used to have a whiteboard on the back of my laptop lid. The problem is though that it doesn’t really hold up well if you put the laptop in a case or a backpack. Or if you carry it around it will smear on your arm.
Still I prefer whiteboards to pen & paper because I can make quick corrections and iterations (I do interface & interaction design). That’s why I just ordered a Noteboard: http://www.thenoteboard.com/index.php (I didn’t get it yet though so I don’t know how good it is.)
I am a huge proponent of this -- I rarely start a project without sketching something out on paper first. It helps me get my thoughts straight.
In a similar vein, I was reading an interview with Donald Knuth the other day, and while I can't find that exact instance, he was quoted saying:
> "The
speed at which I write by hand is almost perfectly synchronized with the speed at which
I think. I type faster than I think so I have to stop, and that interrupts the flow."
Having some paper and a pen can certainly do wonders - just last week I was working on something involving a lot of trigonometry (collision detection in a game), and being able to visualize and think about it on paper helped a lot. Quick visualizations are probably one of the best use-cases in general.
For me at least, part of it is getting a fresh start on the idea. Rewriting stuff usually makes it clearer. Temporariness and the unlimited feeling of paper help with freeing up your mind to just let stuff loose.
Among other problems though is that sometimes the stuff you write turns out not to be that temporary, and that's often the times when rewriting it in digital form is useless. I'm trying to figure out how to design a digital tool that's better than paper in these respects.
And this is probably the most important property of paper to me. You can have five to six full A4 pages easily visible, which, with appropriate handwriting, cover the content of ten to twelve 1.5 x 3 m² blackboard or God-knows-how-many notebook displays.
i was thinking that this article would be about dropbox and 3d printing! agree with the author about his points, however, the title really got me thinking, what if you could store things to paper, it's a relatively cheap medium, take qr codes as an example, stored to paper (or image file), reproducible via bit for bit. tun out of hd space? print
I'm not sure printing data is as cheep as you think it is. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation:
From [1] I got an upper bound of 1,800 DPI in printers
From [2] I got that ink costs 0.0062 $/in^2
Using those numbers, the cost of ink comes out to be about $5.83 per megabyte.
On the other hand, a quick Google search for "hard drive" got a sponsored result for $80 1-terabyte drive from Newegg, comming out to $0.0000762 per megabyte.
[+] [-] skore|13 years ago|reply
A lot of people just keep thick journals, but I like A6 cards that I compile into slim exercise books. I just capture anything that comes to mind on a card[1] and let them sit on a pile. Then, after some time, enough stuff has accumulated and I review the cards and compile them.[1]
It has the sweet spot of not having to commit to something big (meaning it circumvents the urge to make it perfect, usually preventing you from writing it down in the first place), is reasonably flexible if you use masking tape to glue in the cards (there are some books that I could take apart completely and reuse) and can be stashed and sorted easily.[2]
[0] https://plus.google.com/photos/111011776153281260419/albums/...
[1] https://plus.google.com/photos/111011776153281260419/albums/...
[2] https://plus.google.com/photos/111011776153281260419/albums/...
[+] [-] itstriz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rg81|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesjporter|13 years ago|reply
I also know a guy who used to have a piece of whiteboard paper glued the back of his laptop so he could close it and quickly sketch something out if he needed to, his desk is also covered in the stuff.
[+] [-] jancborchardt|13 years ago|reply
Still I prefer whiteboards to pen & paper because I can make quick corrections and iterations (I do interface & interaction design). That’s why I just ordered a Noteboard: http://www.thenoteboard.com/index.php (I didn’t get it yet though so I don’t know how good it is.)
[+] [-] andrewflnr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dan-g|13 years ago|reply
In a similar vein, I was reading an interview with Donald Knuth the other day, and while I can't find that exact instance, he was quoted saying:
> "The speed at which I write by hand is almost perfectly synchronized with the speed at which I think. I type faster than I think so I have to stop, and that interrupts the flow."
-- from (PDF warning) http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematica...
[+] [-] Daiz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewflnr|13 years ago|reply
Among other problems though is that sometimes the stuff you write turns out not to be that temporary, and that's often the times when rewriting it in digital form is useless. I'm trying to figure out how to design a digital tool that's better than paper in these respects.
[+] [-] claudius|13 years ago|reply
Training helps here definitely.
> You can also see more of it at one time.
And this is probably the most important property of paper to me. You can have five to six full A4 pages easily visible, which, with appropriate handwriting, cover the content of ten to twelve 1.5 x 3 m² blackboard or God-knows-how-many notebook displays.
[+] [-] greenyoda|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizmo686|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epynonymous|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizmo686|13 years ago|reply
Using those numbers, the cost of ink comes out to be about $5.83 per megabyte.
On the other hand, a quick Google search for "hard drive" got a sponsored result for $80 1-terabyte drive from Newegg, comming out to $0.0000762 per megabyte.
[+] [-] zxtang|13 years ago|reply