> I keep a pen & notebook on my desk, which I make liberal use of to jot down my thoughts. It works pretty well: ad-hoc todo lists, notes on problems I’m working on, tables, flowcharts, etc. It has some limitations, though. Sharing anything out of my notebook online is an awful pain in the ass. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life, so tables and flowcharts are a challenge. No edits, either, so lots of crossed-out words and redrawn or rewritten pages. And of course, my handwriting sucks and I can type much more efficiently than I can write. I wish this was a digital medium, but there are not any applications available which can support the note-taking paradigm that I wish I could have. What would that look like?<p>Forgot the most important and annoying disadvantage of writing in journals: Search. The whole point of writing is that it is a record that you can at some point in the future benefit from. If you can't search, it is nfg. While some people write to better memorize what they're learning (college students), that's not what author is talking about. Inability to swiftly search things is probably the biggest drawback of writing in notebooks.