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Ask HN: How do you take notes at work?

2 pointsby vishaalkalmost 7 years ago
I recently got into the habit of writing down what I&#x27;ve done at work each day, but found after a few months of daily journaling there are lots of days that I never revisit. I try to keep track of important links and learnings, and started making some bespoke pages like &quot;How do I .... [insert action here?&quot;, which proved useful, but figured I&#x27;d ask here what types of things they found useful to write down. I know some people prioritize their to-dos at the top of each journal page. I tried writing down what I learned each day and that was useful for a while.<p>Interested to hear what people have to say. Thanks!<p>P.S. I use OneNote for this but since it&#x27;s mostly text theoretically I could use anything

1 comment

dvtrnalmost 7 years ago
My method is kind of pure anarchy, some bastardized combination of the bullet journal and freeform notation of things as the pop up in my head.<p>The real magic (for me) is highlighters. I highlight in my journal. Green = Requires action, orange = some kind of policy or process thing, blue = plan for later, or something I want to come back to or a stray idea to try out later.<p>Indentations happen to expand on the previous line. Hanging words are pushed over to the extremity of the page. I sometimes write sideways on pages as almost literal sidebars. There&#x27;s an entire page of a handdrawn command line, colored with lines to output explaining a provisioning script I was rewriting earlier this year.<p>End of the day I then write a summary in OneNote (coming to really like this program--first time back in a Windows shop since 98SE), and later toss the critical stuff that needs to be de-silo&#x27;d into the team wiki.<p>Works for me, utterly baffles everyone else-but folks seem to love how obsessive I am about updating the wiki. Onboarding new devs is HILARIOUSLY fast now. So...there&#x27;s that.<p>...I&#x27;m kind of obsessive about journaling..sorry for the wall of text. Saw the topic and got excited.