
Keeping a Lab Notebook [pdf] - Tomte
https://www.training.nih.gov/assets/Lab_Notebook_508_(new).pdf
======
cgore
I've been keeping a paper notebook since I started my MS in computer science,
which I graduated from about 10 years ago. It's something that really helps in
software development work too. It's amazing how often the same stuff comes up
over and over again, and keeping it all written down really helps. I've got
them all going back to 2004 except for one which I seem to have misplaced.

Some things I'd recommend:

\- Keep it chronological, don't try to keep a half dozen notebooks for
different subjects or projects (unless you have to for privacy/secrecy/etc.
reasons.)

\- Number and/or date all of your pages. I date at the start of each day, and
number all pages, although I don't date all the pages.

\- Number your pages sequentially across multiple notebooks. This is nice for
when you want to write a reference to a previous page, even when it's in an
older notebook it's not a problem. I started doing that about 3 years ago,
before that I'd start back at page 1 for each notebook. I'm at page 1947 right
now, I think I'll be lucky to get to more than 20,000 pages before I die.

\- A few pages in the back for a simple index is nice.

\- Use ink, not pencil, and don't actually scribble out or erase, just a
simple line through is good. Sometimes you want those wrong ideas after all.

\- Put a Tile or similar tracker on your notebook. They are pretty cheap now,
and losing your notebook can really suck.

~~~
Fundlab
I would love to hear thoughts on digital vs hardcopy notebooks

~~~
DigitalJack
I have an ipad pro specifically to use as a digital notebook. I use
notability, and discovered I prefer to write on black background with white,
red, and blue ink. I skip green as I'm colorblind and will mix it up with red.

I don't know if it is my color deficiency or generally applicable, but the
colored ink really pops on a black background. So if I have little annotations
that I want to point out on a diagram, that helps.

~~~
criddell
The iPad Pro with the Pencil is almost a perfect device. I use GoodNotes
rather than Notability, but I think the capabilities are roughly the same.
It's great to be able to write by hand most of the time, type when I need to,
paste images, insert snapshots of white boards, etc...

The OCR is very good too and even my handwritten notes are indexed. I'm not
sure if it indexes the text in images though. I used to use Evernote and it
did an amazing job of that.

I used to use text files exclusively, then I moved to Microsoft Word so I
could paste in images and other non-text items. I missed the handwriting part
of it. Something about using those muscles and going slow helps me absorb the
material better.

~~~
dunham
What size of iPad are you using (you and parent post)? I've been considering
getting a pro+pencil for this purpose. I like to scribble on paper, but I'd
really like archived, searchable copies that don't take up physical space.

~~~
criddell
I have the 10.5" one.

The rumor for next year's model is that it will get face id and that's
something I definitely want.

The one big downside to note taking with an iPad is that it turns itself off
frequently. Having to authenticate frequently with the home button is a pain
and I think face id would be a lot less intrusive.

FWIW, I still scribble on paper, but that tends to be for very ephemeral
things (like a number I need to remember for the next 5 minutes).

~~~
dunham
Thanks, I ended up going with the 10.5" one. It's the size of the steno pads I
scribble on and weighs less than the bigger on. Not a lot of space on my desk
either.

I'm gonna give Notes a try for a while and also Notability, because it appears
I purchased it years ago.

------
urda
Keeping notes and notebooks is a critical skill for any top-tier engineer. I
love to share this quote for that very reason:

    
    
      For this you keep a lab notebook. Everything gets written down, formally,
      so that you know at all times where you are, where you’ve been, where you’re
      going and where you want to get. In scientific work and electronics technology
      this is necessary because otherwise the problems get so complex you get lost
      in them and confused and forget what you know and what you don’t know and
      have to give up.
      
      Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
      Robert M. Pirsig

~~~
jordwest
Starting this week I've been keeping a development diary, inspired by another
post [1] on HN.

I'd been hesitant to do so until now, thinking everything I wrote would go to
waste as I'd never look at it or even remember what I had written.

But after giving it a go, I think that even if I never look at my logs again,
I'll continue to write them.

The key for me has been to continuously write to it almost as if it were an
extension to my brain, rather than just writing things up after the fact.

I'm only on day 4, but so far some benefits I've noticed:

\- Writing down what I'm about to do before I do it helps me stay focused.

\- I can quickly grep to find a command I ran in the past, along with my
stream of consciousness when I ran it.

\- I can pick up where I left off in no time. The ramp up time after
distractions has diminished to almost nothing.

\- I have tangible output at the end of every day, where otherwise it would
have felt like I accomplished nothing. Specifically, when working on those
problems that don't seem to have any tangible output, like debugging some
tricky bug. At the end of the day, instead of just telling myself "I fixed
this issue", I now have hard evidence (for myself) that I actually spent the
day working through a long rigorous debugging process to fix the issue. This
helps me stay motivated and ward off that imposter syndrome.

\- I feel less stressed when I'm stuck on something. I have a hunch that it's
similar to how keeping a personal journal helps to process emotions.

\- Writing out my process makes me less likely to go off on a tangent, or at
least to be more aware that I am in fact going off on a tangent.

\- It helps me keep the bigger picture in mind, sort of like rubber duck
debugging.

Amazingly, I've been writing about 5000 words per day (though that includes
pasted code and command output) and yet I'm getting _more_ work done each day.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14382965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14382965)

------
heynk
I'd love to hear some thoughts about keeping a "lab notebook" for ML
experiments. I use Jupyter Notebooks when playing around with different ML
models, and I find that it really helps to document my thought process with
notes and comments. It also seems that the ML workflow is very 'experiment'
driven. I'm always thinking "Hm, I think if I tweak this hyperparameter this
way, or adjust this layer this way, then I'll get a better result because X".
Thus, I have a bit of a hypothesis and proposed experiment. I run that model,
and see if it improved or not.

Then, I run into an issue where I can either: 1. overwrite the original model
with my new hyperparameters/design and re-run and analyze or 2. keep adding to
the same notebook "page" with a new hypothesis/test/analysis loop, thus making
the notebook pretty large. With number 1, I often want to backtrack and re-
reference how a previous experiment went, but I lose that history. With number
2, it seems to get big pretty quickly, and coming back to the same notebook
requires more setup, and "searching" the history gets more cumbersome.

Does anyone try using a separate notebook page for each experiment, maybe with
a timestamp or "version"? Or is there a better way to do this in a single
notebook? I am thinking that something like "chapters" could help me here, and
it seems like this extension might help me:
[https://github.com/minrk/ipython_extensions#table-of-
content...](https://github.com/minrk/ipython_extensions#table-of-contents)

~~~
paulgb
My process is to separate numbered "scratch" notebooks in which I do one-off
analysis from "pipeline" notebooks/code that process data for use in later
analysis/modeling. Pipeline notebooks are made to take input/output locations
from environment variables and run with nbconvert.

The pipeline code is run by a DAG-like runner (sort of like Make) that is
aware of the parameters and what level of the pipeline they are used at so
that I can trace back outputs to the parameters and files used at every stage
of the model. For stages that are notebooks I can also see the HTML generated
by that run of the notebook.

Unfortunately I've looked far and wide and there's no real open source version
of what I've described, but I'm hoping to open source it once I've worked
through the kinks.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I'm interested in something like this more generically - like a task runner
that creates maybe creates a branch for a particular job/training run on a
remote server that you can monitor/trace source for.

------
CharlesMerriam2
The "Lab Notebook" was once an important legal document: it showed the date of
invention for US Patents. Several years ago, the United States moved to "First
to File" in determining the date of invention, and so much of the legal need
for notebooks vanished.

That said, there are specific notebook tricks every developer should know: 1\.
Write the date and subject neatly in the upper corner. For some reason, this
makes your writing on the rest of the page significantly cleaner. 2\. Use your
notebook instead of scratch paper whenever possible. I often find myself
looking for a scribbled package name or search term that I remember when I had
the problem without remembering the incantation. 3\. Use detailed bug logs
occasionally. That is, keep a list all programming errors with tally marks or
a list of minutes spent. Usually, your repeated, trivial errors will disappear
over a few sessions.

Notebooks can be of real value to you. Pulling out electronics in a meeting
disrupts exactly like paper does not; you appear more organized because you
are; and it can be habit that builds in fits and starts and lost notebooks.
The real downside is that a notebook increases your workload as follow-ups and
investigations are remembered.

------
codemac
As a programmer, I struggle with the lab notebook. I'd like to keep it
digitally along with my other notes, but the legal environment for IP in
programming makes it scary for me.

I've been deposed before, and I'm completely terrified of my notes being used
against me. Either as evidence of me somehow attempting to steal IP from my
employer (because software patents are a fucking joke) or as evidence that I
stole IP from somewhere else.

Curious if anyone has advice around this - thanks! I might just be
irrationally afraid.

~~~
maxerickson
If your process doesn't involve stealing IP, why would documenting it increase
your risk?

~~~
detaro
If he weren't stealing IP, why would he be taking notes about company IP in a
private notebook? Someone asking that question and not liking your answer is
the risk.

~~~
gknoy
I take notes about company IP in a notebook _all the time_. Part of my job is
to document the things I learn about or create in my notebook, precisely so
that we can establish a work timeline on a piece of technology if necessary.

I keep dedicated work notebooks, and while most of the time it's a way for me
to Write Things during meetings to make sure I prioritize tasks and whatnot, I
have quite frequently used them to document new things I'm learning about.
Almost anything non-trivial is worth writing about, sketching about, and
diagramming the major pieces and relationships. Whether it's a piece of
infrastructure that our team might use for packaging and deployment, a
workflow for a tool we are building (or needing to cooperate), or even just
something cool that a co-worker is presenting about, it ends up in my
notebook.

------
twanvl
I have been keeping a digital notebook: each day I make a new file
`~/logbook/YYYY-MM-DD.txt`, and there I write my thoughts, small code
fragments, results of running said fragments, etc. As well as quick summaries
of meetings and todo items.

~~~
vidarh
I've done something similar, but I keep going back to paper because it's a lot
easier to vary formatting, reorder and restructure things etc. I still want to
find a digital structure that is sufficiently flexible, but so far I haven't
come up with anything that feels good enough.

In fact, it drove me to write my own editor recently (because, frankly, it
felt more straight forward to write my own editor than to learn elisp well
enough to do what I wanted with Emacs)

~~~
hotsauceror
I've tried both, because as an IT guy it made sense to use, you know,
computerized tools. But as a DBA, I live and die by checklists and multi-
column quick reference tables. I find these are much easier to create,
maintain, and update on paper than they are in Notepad++, for example. I also
trained myself to use the mouse with my left hand so I can write with the
other, and so it's a lot less disruptive to my workflow and train of thought
than having to jump back and forth between multiple app windows. My current
favorite is the Leichtturm (sp?) 1917 with the dot grid.

~~~
vidarh
It's one of the toughest usability problems in computing, I think. Replacing
paper is remarkably hard. I had hopes for tablets, but input lag is too
disruptive still, and they still suffer from the problem that I can't flick
through pages or spread them out on a desk. I'll probably keep trying to find
a solution for the rest of my life, and keep failing...

~~~
stinkytaco
I work in an industry not far from publishing and I'm fairly regularly asked
about "the future of the book". The thought experiment I run people through is
to look at the book like you might a piece of technology. It's UI, cost,
features, durability, battery life, etc. Paper holds up pretty well as a
technology.

The UI really has a lot going for it, though part of that is that we've spent
our whole lives learning it. Plus many of the shortcomings of paper have been
at least partially overcome by clever workarounds (like indexes).

------
abhgh
Over time I have settled into the following "personal best practices" of sorts
to track my research:

1\. I add papers that I read to Mendeley. This makes them accessible across
devices. Also makes them searchable. Before: Used to keep them in a Dropbox
folder, with a specific naming scheme that has the title and the author names
(some if not all) in the title.

2\. Notes go into a LaTex document. Either I maintain the document in its own
Git repo or have it on ShareLaTex. Before: Used to maintain a MarkDown
document, but I realized that to submit technical reports (PDF documents with
tables, formulae, graphs and citations) I can now simply copy-paste from my
LaTex "notebook".

3\. Codes go into a Git repo.

4\. For the stuff I am currently reading, I usually print out some of it and
carry them around in a folder. Which also has some blank sheets and a pen. But
long term conclusions make it back to my LaTeX notes. This folder is like my a
materialized working memory.

FYI: if it matters, area of research: ML

------
_Wintermute
As someone who works in both wet-lab work and bioinformatics, there is a
horrible disconnect between my lab notebook for wet-lab work and my
computational work (which mainly consists of jupyter notebooks or dated python
scripts).

I've still not seen a product or workflow that can combine the two. Electronic
notebooks for bench work really don't work.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
What's wrong with electronic lab notebooks for bench work, and what would you
hope to see in a 'notebook' that combines wet work with computational work?

~~~
_Wintermute
Quite often I want to sketch things, or stick in a paper printout from old-
school lab-equipment. Both if these are a pain on a computer.

With a lab book you can take it round with you from lab area to lab area or
quickly jot something down. I suppose you could give each researcher a
designated "lab-only" laptop, though waiting for software to load up etc just
to write down a few numbers is a lot of hassle.

~~~
sasvari
I use a cheap chromebook as a dedicated lab laptop. I set up a digital lab
notebook with vimwiki, taskwiki and git, and sync to a git server (and other
computers I use). I only have to open it up and vim is ready to jot down
things.

------
godelski
> In short, this is where you record everything that happens during the
> experiment. This means any deviation from the protocol, whether it was
> planned, an accident, an error or a mistake needs to be written down.

THIS CANNOT BE OVER STATED.

I cannot tell you how many times I have run into a problem and found it
because of a small mistake. On the other hand, I've gained ideas from
mistakes. When doing any type of experiment you will ALWAYS make mistakes.
These variables end up becoming extremely important and are often not written
down because experimenters are embarrassed.

Brevity is nice in lab books, but if you are going to error, error on the side
of verbose.

------
kuwze
I really wish that it was standard procedure to treat a lab notebook like a
journal, in contrast to the status quo and this paper.

Scientific papers today try to separate the knowledge discovered from the
authors own steps. It would be so useful to learn about the false starts and
misunderstandings they had; that knowledge is just as important as the
discovery itself in my opinion.

~~~
hmwhy
I absolutely agree with you.

Over time, I have developed the habit of writing thoughts and detailed
discussions of why certain things were done in my lab notebooks (I was taught
not to do that as an undergraduate). It's very frustrating to have to follow
someone else's work, particularly unpublished work, without knowing what had
gone into designing experiments.

------
kkylin
Context: I'm an academic in applied math. Like most of you, I juggle multiple
things -- courses, projects, students, committees. I spend most of my tube
time in Emacs (yes, I know this half sentence tells you how old I am), and for
each "project" (a research project, a course I'm teaching, a student I'm
working with, etc) I keep an org file with a log of day-to-day or week-to-week
progress. Every so often I go back and write an entry about my plans for the
next month or so. This has worked reasonably well for me.

A very nice thing about org-mode is that most of the rest of the time I'm
either writing code or papers, and all of that is in Emacs too. So if a
thought pops up about a project while I'm in the middle of something else,
it's really easy to jot it down in the right place and go back to it later.

~~~
castle-bravo
I'm a 28-year old engineering undergraduate and I spend most of my time in
e-macs as of about a year ago. It took a little time to get used to, but it's
been worth it.

I've recently fallen in love with org-mode and I want to ask you about using
it as an engineering journal: how can I make it legally authenticatable? If I
keep my journals in org-mode, is a private github repository sufficient for
security and authentication?

~~~
tomjen3
You can always create a new set of commits (git will let you change the dates
to what ever you want) and force push to master. Will look completely legit,
unless somebody else has a prior checkout, or a hash.

That is how you make it work: at the end of each workday, email somebody
neutral the hash of head.

------
lowglow
I went to school for both chemistry and electrical engineering. I've since
acquired the habit of using a lab notebook with everything I do. It's an
amazingly useful utility both for recall but also record keeping.

Make it a habit yourself and you won't be disappointed.

------
biofox
The best advice I've read on keeping a lab notebook is to not worry about
neatness.

Being a perfectionist, I used to delay writing things down, because I felt I
needed to take time to "do it right". Or, I'd write things on scraps of paper
with the intention of copying it later.

Giving myself permission to make a mess was liberating, and ultimately
increased my productivity and the amount I was recording.

I also recommend taking photos of entries at the end of each day, to keep a
digital backup.

~~~
krrrh
The book “Wreak this Journal” is designed to help people get over the
reverence they have for blank journals, and it’s fun for kids.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/428862.Wreck_This_Journa...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/428862.Wreck_This_Journal)

------
fuball63
I'm a programmer and I was inspired to start keeping a log from a talk I heard
about using the scientific method for troubleshooting. My log is more of
everything the article says not to do; a journal, notes from meetings, list of
what I've done. I find it keeps me more productive and focused, and I've seen
immediate benefits in terms of remembering details on how to do something. I
use QOwnNotes, make an entry every day, and tag it liberally.

------
Ryel
Does anyone keep a coding journal?

I recently bought a dedicated Moleskine to record algorithms and design
patterns I use at work and university. It's been really fun to record multiple
solutions and then be able to review my writing several days or weeks later to
note an optimal solution.

Looking for formatting tips similar to Bullet[0] journaling, but for more
STEM-related notekeeping.

[0] [http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)

~~~
fuball63
I use QOwnNotes to log my conversations, snippets, howtos, and daily work
journal. I've seen immediate benefits, like productivity, focus, and
knowledge.

------
ChuckMcM
I can highly recommend keeping a lab notebook and the article has an excellent
summary. In my case I prefer the bound and stitched notebooks.

Since I keep several projects going at once in the notebook I've developed a
system to make that possible in a notebook where the pages are numbered and
not removable.

The start of the project gets a note in the table of contents of the first
page # for that project.

When I switch to a new project I draw a horizontal line across the page and
attach a 'post-it' flag to that page. These are like those 'sign here' flags
they are easily removable. And I've got a multi-color pack of flags adhered to
the inside cover of the notebook.

When I go back to a previous project, I draw a horizontal line in the notebook
and using the flags find where I had stopped on the project earlier in the
notebook. I then draw an oval and write "To: ###" where the ### is the page
number of where I pick up that project again. I remove the post it flag and on
the page where I've restarted I draw an oval with "From: ###".

If I switch projects again later I again put a post-it flag and the horizontal
line.

This wasn't my idea, as far as I can tell newspapers and magazine have used
this to link parts of a story through the publication since forever.

When I'm disciplined about it (sometimes I have to go back and fix up my
linked lists :-) I can review any project fairly quickly from the start, and
when I'm further into the notebook, follow links backwards to quickly remind
myself of what the last thing I had done was.

I really helps me keep multiple things moving forward in my day to day.

~~~
AceyMan
To my fellow pen & paper nerds in this thread:

For serious, sturdy bound notebooks check out snco.com (Scientific Notebook
Company).

When I worked in academic medicine that's where the department sourced all
their notebooks. If a notebook can be called "overbuilt," these are.

No affiliation other than 'satisfied customer.'

NB for the Rest of the World: they do make an A4 version, which is what I
ordered. /* I'm the rare ISO216 compliant Yankee. :-D */

~~~
ColanR
Wow, those are way cheaper than I expected. Thanks for the link.

------
mark_histed
This post is from the NIH intramural (Bethesda/DC campus) training site.

The NIH has research in genomics, neuroscience, machine learning, cell
biology, and there's lots of cross talk between these fields.

There are PhD students at NIH (via partnerships with other universities, one
example:
[http://neuroscience.brown.edu/gpp/](http://neuroscience.brown.edu/gpp/)),
postbacs who stay for a few years to do research after undergrad, and
postdocs.

As you can see from resources like this on lab notebooks, the central NIH
training office takes mentorship and learning seriously. As do the scientists.
If you want to know more about NIH intramural research you can message me.

(Our group uses Evernote extensively for lab notebooks; the image markup
brings a ton of value. We follow a lot of the recommendations here.)

------
ajoy
I have gone back & forth with Notebook and Digital.

The current system that seems to work for me, is to have a ring binder similar
to this : [https://www.staples.com/1-2-Staples-
Standard-5-1-2-x-8-1-2-M...](https://www.staples.com/1-2-Staples-
Standard-5-1-2-x-8-1-2-Mini-View-Binder-with-Round-Rings-Black/product_580932)

Then buy paper fillers : [https://www.amazon.com/Avery-Filler-Inches-
Sheets-14230/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Avery-Filler-Inches-
Sheets-14230/dp/B004K6LHBQ)

Some rules I follow:

* Every time I start a new project or topic, I start on a new page.

* Have tabs/stickers along the side of the paper that starts a new project

* If you are continuing to write on a paper/project that has stuff on it already, continue on a new page. Since its a binder, you can always move sheets around.

Once I am done with a project, I move it to digital form by arranging it like
a mind-map onto a digital notebook. This serves two purposes. 1. reinforces
the main concepts in my head. 2. Digital makes it easy to search.

Having tried a lot of them, the only one that I like that has all the features
I am looking for is MILKR ([https://milkr.io](https://milkr.io)) - no
affiliation.

------
cptcobalt
As someone who doesn't come from the educational world, this idea confuses me:

    
    
      Most importantly, your lab notebook is not yours.
    

Many of the ideas presented on slide 4 seem a bit antithetical to a bit of the
reason why someone would keep a good notebook. If I wasn't going to keep it,
why would I bother? Or is this based off the idea that the institution is
paying for it, therefore they own your research/knowledge?

~~~
vidarh
Because they are part of what you're being paid to do in that case.

~~~
dredmorbius
Being paid to do something does not automatically make all that is involved in
the doing of that thing property of they payee.

If I am being paid to produce some _deliverable product_ or _deliverable
service_ , then the infrastructure used to create that may very much _not_ be
a deliverable or property of the customer.

My point isn't "you are wrong", but rather, there is not _necessarily_ an
automatic assignment of such intermediate products. And depending on the type
of work (and/or customers / employers you're working for), the answer may
vary. Law, custom, employment contracts, and/or engagement contracts will
almost certainly play a role here.

If that governing rule is "you shall maintain a project journal and that
journal is considered work product and property of the employer", then yes,
that is part of what you're being paid to do. Though this may _still_ give you
rights to the contents of that journal.

~~~
vidarh
In his case the point is that the engineering notebooks _are_ parts of the
deliverables you're paid to produce: They're documentation that staff are very
explicitly trained to and expected to produce in a format that is conducive to
e.g. handovers as part of their normal duties, and the expectations of this
are very clearly set out.

If you wish to also produce a personal engineering notebook for your own
personal purposes, then that is a separate issue. The very fact that this
document sets this out as a task that involves producing a notebook that is
not yours makes it a work product. If you put things in there you don't think
your employer should have rights to, then that is your fault for putting it in
there instead of in your personal notes.

~~~
dredmorbius
The salient datum is not "being paid" but the contractual obligation.

Fault and negotiating advantage are a deeper issue. I'll note these though I'm
not interested in going into it further presently.

~~~
vidarh
"being paid" is here used to point out that they are part of the duties of the
job covered by the contract. If they aren't part of your contracted work,
you're not being paid for it.

There's nothing to go further into - these are very straight-forward issues
when they are presented to you as a part of your duties. They are less so if
you on personal initiative decide to keep additional notes for your own use,
but the context here is a presentation to employees presenting instructions
for how to carry out this work duty, so that hardly applies in this case.

------
bigtimber
Been using this for decades; my first boss, a PhD physicist, out of college
got me started on using this. It's still being sold today:
[https://www.amazon.com/National-Computation-Notebook-
Inches-...](https://www.amazon.com/National-Computation-Notebook-
Inches-43648/dp/B00007LV4B)

------
fest
Nobody has mentioned Wacom Bamboo series digitizers, which is what I am using.
It allows me to sync notes I'm writing on plain paper with my phone/tablet. It
even tries to OCR my handwriting (which doesn't work flawlessly, but since I
have a habit of writing subject titles in all caps, I can at least search by
those).

------
forkandwait
I have never tried it, but I am interested in the Grinnell field notebook
methodology:

[https://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/mnh/grinnell-
journa...](https://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/mnh/grinnell-
journaling.pdf)

------
thinkMOAR
It would require carbon paper and a 2nd notebook at least to cover 'backups'
and in that sense, I highly prefer electronic note taking.

~~~
83457
Haven't look at them in half a decade but smart pens always seemed like a
solid idea to meet this need. Livescribe was the primary one I looked at years
ago but I know there were multiple competitors and technologies available. The
end goal being that when you write on paper the strokes are saved digitally.
Now tablets are probably nearly completely taking digital handwriting over but
I've never felt as comfortable writing on glass screens as on paper.

~~~
52-6F-62
There's RocketBook. I use it pretty regularly, but you aren't left with a hard
copy if that's your preference — unless you print the results.

You could of course also just use a doc scanner on your phone and keep your
hardcopy notebook instead.

[https://getrocketbook.com/](https://getrocketbook.com/)

I picked it up during the Kickstarter campaign. If it has one advantage, it
will auto-send your notes to one/more preset destinations out of seven, like
email it to you or someone else, send to Evernote, OneNote, etc. It's worked
alright for me so far.

I never much liked the writing on glass feeling, either. Growing up I was a
bibliophile and always preferred working with paper. I'm trying this out as a
happy middle.

