For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an abysmal time remembering all the important but small things that happen during any given day.
I’ve tried all the usual tricks: fancy Moleskin notebooks, online services, stickies everywhere, even writing on the back of my hand. The latter got really messy, but that isn’t to say the other options were clean or desirable, either.
Then a couple of things happened:
First, I discovered the magic of pocket-size, thin, lightweight notebooks like the venerable Field Notes (“I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.”) and a new favorite of mine, Writersblok. The key here is that the format allows them to live in my back pocket all day without me paying the extra weight or bulk any mind. Muy importante.
Second, finally, a solid syncing notes app landed for the iPhone: Simplenote. And while Simplenote is amazing on it’s own (thanks to a great web interface for interacting with your notes), it needed just a bit more to make it truly killer. Enter: JustNotes.
Now that the pieces were all in place, a truly useful and time-tested workflow emerged. During meetings, brainstorms, etc., I scribble like mad in my formerly-tree notebooks. I’ve found that - with my goldfish-like short-term memory - as long as I write enough down about at particular event, I can reconstruct said in my head after the fact, which makes everything much easier.
Lastly, to ensure personal institutional memory of all these bits of chicken-scratch, I cull the most relevant bits from paper and bring them into Simplenote. At this point, I’m able to look up all my notes from anywhere, as long as the web is within reach.
Pretty damn sweet, if I do say so myself.
Posted on Friday, 4 December 2009
