

If You Didn't Write It Down, It Didn't Happen -- Take Notes - cschanck
http://designbygravity.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/methods-of-work-it-didnt-happen-if-you-didnt-record-it/

======
ghshephard
One of _the_ most effective meeting strategies that I've seen recently, is our
Technical Project Director who leads our 30 minute scrum each morning, starts
off with a structured five part agenda in the form of an Email (Strategic
Issue of the week, planned critical Must hits of the week, P1 unplanned
emergencies, Daily Sprint, and, if we have time, tasks to be accomplished that
week (mostly the jira-tasks with due dates landing that week)) - and, as we
_scream_ through the agenda (people rarely have more than 20 seconds to
respond, provide updates) he rapidly types all updates and responses into the
email.

When we get to 10:00 (Our scrum runs from 9:30 - 10:00 AM) he announces "It's
10:00, and this meeting is done." and hits the Send Button on the email.

I realize that this can be all done on a Wiki, or other mechanisms, but it's
surprising how _reassuring_ it is to know that I have on my laptop/iPhone a
detailed list of all the strategic/Commitments/P1s/Sprints/Tasks that the org
is worried about today/this week. Also, it's a very efficient mechanisms for
the person taking notes. Their job is complete before we leave the room at
10:01 AM.

And, additional bonus - when I have my Staff meeting on Mondays, at 11:00 AM,
half of that meeting is simply going over the relevant parts of the email that
was sent out at 10:00 AM.

~~~
ardit33
Sounds like an awful way to start the day.

Like hamsters in a treadmill, just looking for the next two weeks, and never
ahead enough. ( I know this by experience).

The scrum process is fine when dealing with bugs, or small incremental
features, but it is very ineffective when dealing with completely new products
or when trying to deal with innovative features.

Scrum throws all creativity out of the window. By creativity/innovation, I
mean doing completely new things that are even a magnitude better, or just
faster processes that what you have.

Creativity is a thing that just gets killed by planning. Often it happens when
you are dealing with a problem. But the scrum process, puts blinders on
developers, as you are supposed to work only on what you planned/committed to,
and nothing else, like a good horse just watch the path you are told to by
your manager/pm/team lead, and don't get distracted by anything else. Kills
any instrict motivation, and sends a group towards a path of mediocrity as it
delegates all decision making/creativity on the team lead (manager, or mp).

~~~
maurycy
The another problem with the hour is that -- I don't know how about other
people -- but I'm the most productive in the early morning, or very late
night. My mind is completely focused on work then.

If there's a meeting, or whatever, it means that my output will be seriously
hurt. That's another problem with such methodologies' descriptions: it is very
tempting to response me that I don't fit to the team or I should try to change
my habits, even if, in the right environment, I'm always the most productive
team member.

~~~
wglb
I agree with you about the hour. What I did on my last major consulting
assignment is to get in at 0600 and get lots of stuff done before any meeting
was threatening to happen.

------
isamuel
It's for exactly this reason that I keep a personal, daily journal. At the end
of each day, just before I go to bed, I take a few minutes to reflect over
what I did that day that I'd like to be able to remember in 5 or 50 years.

I keep it mundane: I did this, then I did that, and after dinner, I did this.
If commentary occurs to me, I'll jot it down, but if not, a Joe Friday "just
the facts" transcription will do just fine. It usually takes only a few
minutes. And yet reading entries even a year old can be fascinating: the
amount you will forget in a year's time (to say nothing of a decade) is
enormous. Even recording just big-picture outlines of day to day life makes a
great journal.

~~~
AngryParsley
I also recommend having some sort of personal log. People forget things
easily, but they're just as easily reminded of them. Rereading old entries
helps remind you how you changed (or how you haven't), and helps you recall
events that otherwise would have been forgotten.

Do you use a paper journal or an electronic one? I used to use composition
books, but last year I switched to digital since I can easily back it up. My
system is just text files in a directory hierarchy:

ggreer@carbon:/Volumes/DIARY/2010/01$ ls 02.txt 03.txt 04.txt 05.txt 06.txt
10.txt 11.txt ...

In the rare event that I want to draw something, I'll draw it on paper and
scan it or draw on a whiteboard and take a photo. I prefer text though, since
I can grep -r it.

~~~
isamuel
Your method sounds good.

Right now, I use paper. I do create backups (photocopies), although whether
I'll buy another paper journal when I fill this one is an open question. One
advantage that paper has is that, if properly preserved, it's quite durable;
it's not vulnerable to file system changes or anything. A disadvantage is that
it's laughably easy to destroy in a flood or fire, whereas data can be
searched and backed up.

I also have some irrational quasi-romantic attachment to a journal written in
my own handwriting, but I'm probably going to need to let that go.

------
Alex3917
I can't recommend FreeMind highly enough. It easily gives you a ten IQ point
advantage, in terms of being able to create insights you wouldn't have been
able to see otherwise. Anyone not using it might as well be eating paint
chips.

~~~
aharrison
I have tried FreeMind on several occasions and my biggest frustration point
with it is that it is a tree instead of a graph. Is there an easy way to get
around this? Many (most?) of my ideas interconnect and it would be nice to be
able to organize them non-hierarchically.

~~~
Alex3917
Most ideas do interconnect, so at first it would seem that the best way to
model a system would be using a concept map. But forcing yourself to think in
trees usually leads to much deeper understanding. This is because you end up
listing examples of something, or arguments for and against things. And once
you retrain your brain to see see the connections between the arguments and
examples, you see that this is infinitely more valuable than just being able
to see the connections between concepts.

------
Emore
The best note-taking app I've yet to find is Notational Velocity:
<http://notational.net/>

Completely mouse-free and uncluttered. Also, it doesn't make the mistake to
organize the notes, since this is usually impossible and a waste.

EDIT: web-page seems down, check Github instead:
<http://wiki.github.com/scrod/nv/>.

------
danohuiginn
I'm another fan of text files. My system has grown a bit over the years I've
been keeping my notes like this. I have a shell alias to open vim with a file
in my diary subdir, named according to the current date. That stays open all
day, and is where I write and record everything that doesn't fit into an
organized project. Topic-specific notes go into other text files, depending on
subject. Pyblosxom running over that whole directory hierarchy gives me a
presentable view of all my notes in a browser (with slightly-modified markdown
for formatting).

It gets synced to Dropbox, and is also a hg repository that I intermittently
push to a server for safekeeping. Honestly I've very rarely wanted to check
the revision history, but it's there if I need it. [and another advantage of
plain text].

It may sound over-elaborate, but that's just because it's grown over the years
according to what i've needed. I'll probably add some kind of lightweight
tagging/search system soon, if only because at >1m words, it's reaching the
point where grep is a bit sluggy. And it's hard to overstate the benefits of
having a view of my daily life, year by year.

------
chanux
I've tried many of the note taking methods the author has mentioned. But only
the plain text files manage to stick around. And once I found Dropbox, I
symlinked my note taking text files in to Dropbox directory.

------
est
I suggest yEd to do mind mapping instead of Freemind/Xmind

<http://www.yworks.com/products/yed/>

and Quotepad for simple text note-taking

<http://quotepad.info/>

~~~
davepage
Evernote includes the clipping and time stamping of quotepad, plus syncs all
your notes to web and mobile. <http://www.evernote.com/>

~~~
est
By Quotepad I mean simple. Evernote is alternative to OneNote.

------
jff
When I'm at work, I keep notes in a dedicated spiral notebook. That's where I
draw out diagrams of the stack, write down kernel crash messages, and sketch
out new stuff. Lately, at school, I've been making notes for my projects on
dozens of sheets of printer paper.

Fact is, paper is probably the most versatile way to take notes, because when
you need a graph or an equation, you don't have to muck about entering data
points or writing TeX equations, you just draw/write the thing. You don't have
to worry about formatting or anything like that.

------
zzleeper
I'm very interested in this, but I need to be able to write down equations.

Is there any good note-taking software where I can write equations, either as
latex or something similar?

Thanks =)

~~~
chronomex
When I was taking physics courses, I took notes in plain text files with TeX
formatted equations inline. I could write them almost as fast as the professor
was writing them on the board. They were even modestly readable, so long as I
took care to insert meaningful whitespace.

~~~
zzleeper
Thanks! (And for viewing.. u exported them to pdf?)

~~~
slug
I prefer to use straight tex files when math equations are needed. If your
emacs is properly configured (auctex + reftex + preview) you can preview the
equations while typing. C-c C-p C-{p,r,s,d,b,etc}. I'm running emacs 23.x
here. org-mode also supports embedded latex formulae with preview!
[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/org/Proce...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/org/Processing-
LaTeX-fragments.html#Processing-LaTeX-fragments)

------
Roridge
I take this ethos in a different sense, if you didn't write it down then it
"shouldn't" happen. Everything for me starts with some kind of design, and
that's pen to paper, every time.

------
uggedal
Simple text files works even better if you check them in to a DVCS like
Mercurial og Git. History of deleted items and instant replication between
computers.

------
greyman
I can recommend Evernote, it's great for notetaking. I'd also like to correct
some inaccuracies in the article, for people who don't know the software:

\- if there isn't a network connection, that isn't a fail. You can use native
client in offline mode, and the data will be synced next time you will be
online.

\- the notes does automatically open in editing mode. (at least in version 3.1
I use).

------
ErrantX
In my job if you don't make notes then it pretty much legally never happened.

It's done wonders for my productivity having to make constant critical notes.
Especally if you have to go back to a problem after a break.

------
icey
I do it the old-fashioned way - With a big old pile of paper notebooks:

<http://i.imgur.com/l7J0e.jpg>

------
marshallp
I use prolog written in text files, it's pretty much the perfect query
language and so there's no better tool for organizing your knowledge. (it's
such a cool way to organize notes that i often go overboard with taking too
many notes and too much organizing).

It's also a brilliant metaprogramming language (i use it for html, java,
javascript, python, sql, mozart/oz) so you can spend all your work time in it
if you're a programmer.

~~~
simonw
You use prolog for note taking? That's fascinating - any chance you could
paste in just a few lines so we can see what it looks like (and maybe an
example of a query you might run)?

~~~
marshallp
It's not so fascinating at when first writing a note, but it gets interesting
after that -you have tags on tags -and finally you get an ontology or
thereabouts

I'm not sure it's cut out for everyone though

hackernewscomment_paragraph_id("I use prolog written in text files, it's
pretty much the perfect query language and so there's no better tool for
organizing your knowledge. (it's such a cool way to organize notes that i
often go overboard with taking too many notes and too much
organizing).",1,1030).

hackernewscomment_paragraph_id("It's also a brilliant metaprogramming language
(i use it for html, java, javascript, python, sql, mozart/oz) so you can spend
all your work time in it if you're a programmer.",2,1030).

comment_tag(1030,prolog). pllanguagecomment(X) :-
comment_tag(X,Y),pllanguage(Y). pllanguage(prolog). pllanguage(java).
description(pllanguagecomment,"tell me comment id's where i commented about a
programming language").

~~~
marshallp
check out protege ontology editor for people who'd like a graphical tool for
this style of organizing

------
uriel
Reminds me of this wonderful scene of Yes, Prime Minister:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKjShmHw7s>

~~~
cschanck
God, what a great show that was. For those who are members, it is available
for streaming over Netflix.

------
berntb
A log of notes. Hmm, I _should_ try this.

I started using Org mode in Emacs recently.

Anyone have any experience for the best way to use Org mode for note taking?

~~~
kanak
Sacha Chua has some very nice instructions (from her upcoming book on Emacs) :
[http://sachachua.com/wp/2008/01/outlining-your-notes-with-
or...](http://sachachua.com/wp/2008/01/outlining-your-notes-with-org/)

~~~
berntb
Her blog (found from HN comments) was half my motivation to start using Org.
But I haven't seen that page of hers. Thanks! [Edit: But sigh, not discussing
logs. :-)]

