Let’s all thank Neil for his contribution to this post. His comment on my Shifter site was the impetus for this film. Notes, journals, notebooks. All part of my daily life. I use these items as much or more than my computer, camera, bike, and hook kick training dummy. More than a few people are nervous about notes and journaling. Forget about everything else and start the process. Your notes do not have to look like works of art. The best note-takers are journalists, and trust me when I say that NONE of them produce notes that look like artwork. Artwork notes are a product of the YouTube facade. I share digital and analog processes in this film and how I make my daily notes.
Creative: How I Take Notes
Comments 24
I often work with sketch artists on events, and one of them recommended a book called “Drawing on the right side of your brain”by Betty Edwards for learning. Everybody who’s into drawing says it’s a great starting point, so I bought it with the exercise booklet and will start, because my 6 y.o. son is madly into drawing and I want to share that with him. I’ll tell you how it goes, but so far it seems great.
Author
I’ve got it. A great book. It’s in depth and requires you to build a few items, but if you have the time it’s a legendary book.
This is great, one of the favorite video you’ve done. I’ve been taking notes for years on a computer using Microsoft OneNote (looks similar to Notability) and only started a year ago using a physical journal and a pen. One of the best decision I’ve made, it allows me to put screens away for a little while. I’m curious to know how do you organize your digital notes. I do mine by subject (Photography, Cooking, …). Do you have a section similar to your physical or paper journal, i.e. one for each day (2025 – February – 5: “Today, I will…”).
Author
My digi notes are just there. They aren’t organized, but I can easily find what I need based on the book title.
It’s a struggle and effort to keep notes I often rip them apart then paste them back together in chronological order because I am not organized but in the end they actually work for me and are such an important part of my life, they might be rubber band and tape bound booklets but in the end I could never see myself using any other method to control the chaos!
Author
I like that. Kinda like the cutup method that Burroughs did!
First: A Fletch and a Night Shift reference in the same film? Outstanding! Second: There were a lot of helpful items in here. The best, for me, being the use of highlighters so you can flip through and find things more quickly. Lastly, I agree that if I too could draw, I’d probably sell my most of my camera gear. It would certainly make traveling a lot lighter!
Thanks Dan!
Author
Yes, color coding is so easy and so worth it. Fletch, Night Shift. What else do we need?
What the heck…when I start the video on Shifter, I get an auto-generated German computer voice, although at the moment, my YT settings have “language English (US)”.
Obviously, YT is getting worse by the month. I have to switch the language setting between almost every video. It translates German videos to English, and vice versa. But even the videos by an Austrian guy, who submits his videos in English with an interesting accent, get translated back into German.
And of course, there’s no setting to suppress this “feature” altogether. (I _want_ to watch “Parasite” in Korean, _with- the North-Korean aacent!)
Dan, please go back to Vimeo!
Author
So bizarre. My goal long term….my own platform. But, not nearly enough time for that now.
Field Note’s motto: “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.”
Author
That sums it up. My brain needs all the help it can get.
NY Times this morning: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/travel/sketching-watercolors-vacation-hobby.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk4.ahJ_.CeRwjAjstKFo&smid=url-share
Author
If I could do that, I’d forget the camera. That has SO much feel, and you only need ONE page to record the trip.
Not long ago, I came to a surprising realization that paper and pen are absolutely fantastic. This was unexpected because technology had always been my ally, making my life easier rather than getting in the way. I had a system that felt like the ultimate dream, something minimalist and timeless, where all my knowledge, work, notes, journal, documents, and essential life data were consolidated in a single computer. I used only time-tested, open-source, and vendor-lock-in-free technologies. The system was fast, light, clutter-free, encrypted, with no dependencies. Everything was automated, perfectly tuned, and built almost entirely around plain text files. But for some reason, it just didn’t work and felt like a constant struggle. Switching to analog for some aspects was the answer to my restlessness and it brought many positive surprises and discoveries.
Thanks again for taking the time Uncle Dan, it truly resonates and my life is better.
Author
Jesus, you are my hero. You might be the only person I’ve ever encountered who had such a system. You can go back to it if you wish, at least it’s there. But glad you are going analog.
Thanks Dan. Notes are notes. No need to create a masterpiece. I Think I was intimidated by the assumed need to have a combination of sharp writing skills, extreme design nouse, coupled with an ability to de formalise the aforementioned but still retain cutting edge publishing. I see, literally now that is absolutely not required and positively avoided. I can safely now look back on my journal and feel that it doesn’t lack the stylisation that I felt I had to showcase, and I’m quite OK with that. Thanks for ‘opening up’ your work, the whole journaling thing has become far less stylistically crucial. Notes are notes !
Author
Your comment represents a lot of people. That outside influence of the facade world. It’s all an act. It’s not real. Real is messy and imperfect. Just relax and start.
Definitely try switching hands for sketching- it enables you to draw what you see, instead of drawing what you think about your subject. I had to sit on my right hand to keep it from creeping up and trying to steel the pencil back. Some other tips- vary the scale you are working in- try a large piece of paper, and use large gestures when sketching. Definitely try using drawing materials that are not made for exact work. One of my best portraits was done with a stick dipped in ink, on a piece of random brown paper. Try drawing the outline of the object instead of drawing the object. Everyone can draw beautifully as a child, and the masters are able to recapture that freedom, and that unique way of seeing the world. Also, you need to practice, just like photography. My drawing skills are rusty, because I don’t practice enough. When my kids were little, we drew, painted, and made stuff together all the time. They were not judge-y. 🙂 Find some little kids to draw with. They are bold and unafraid of drawing and painting.
Author
Kids are the best. I’ve done that stick thing at one point in my life. I now have a little pad of paper in a pencil on my desk. I just drew my phone.
We’ve got a similar approach for notes (that we’ve already discussed). I was taught to use loose leaf paper held together with a simple bulldog clip when doing my Graphic Design degree. You can spread notes and sketches out, see multiple pages at once, reorder, etc. There’s lots of advantages. But…and it’s a big one…I realised that my memory is spacial, and loose leaf paper (along with digital notes) completely screws with my recall. Whatever I write in those formats may as well be sucked into a blackhole. It’s gone.
Conversely, I could tell you what I wrote in a notebook ~3 years ago (which would be about 6 notebooks back at this point) because I can recall where I was when I wrote it, what I did before and after I wrote it, and that I was approximately 25 pages into the green notebook, and that I wrote about 28mm lenses from half way down verso and all the way through recto. So much of my memory is related to physical spaces and how I remember moving through them, and in what order. The change in location, or even the transition from one page to the next acts like an index in my brain, making it easier to jump in and out of notes. It’s why I struggle to work from one location. It’s why I struggle to work on screens (which makes writing software interesting…). My memory is tied to physical space.
All this to say…what might be right for one person, or objectively best may not work for you. In fact it’s more than likely it won’t! So as Dan points out, there’s no wrong way to do this, and the worst thing you can do is listen to other people about how to do it (including me!). Spend some time figuring out how you work best, and do that.
Author
Not a bad idea at all. Makes sense. And yes, everyone needs to find their own path if the journal is what they want to pursue.
Even the influencers are catching on Dan!
Author
Give them time…