Sharing because I can see this community having thoughts to share. :)

cross-posted from: https://wayfarershaven.eu/post/182136

With so much note taking apps nowadays, I can’t understand why does anyone still write notes with pen and paper. You need to bring the notepad, book or that paper to retrieve that information, and most of the time you don’t have it in hand. While my phone almost always reachable and you carry when you go out. For those still like to do handwriting, there’s many app does that and they can even convert it to text notes.

So, if you still write notes with pen and paper, why?

  • petrescatraian@libranet.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    @hsl I have lots of notes from my college & high school years, all scattered through various notebooks that I had to take from home when I left. So it’s all a mess that I’m not that fond of. My country is also one where the educational system is pretty digitally backwards, so while on college students with laptops became quite ubiquitous over time (I started using a Lenovo Yoga 8 tablet, then a netbook, then the same tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse) - even having a tablet in high school was short of a crime, unofficially.

    I do indeed have notes scattered through apps, but I find it way easier exporting these and putting everything together, while I cannot easily do this with notebooks.

    At my current job, I received a notebook though, and a 4-colors ballpoint pen. I started taking my training notes there, and I must say I find it easier to retain the info and memorize at least where can I find a specific information - something that I’m not sure I could’ve achieved with a digital note-taking app, no matter how good its indexing is. Also, if you want to schematize things, nothing beats pen and paper imo. Sure, you can buy an expensive tablet with a pen for the screen (an iPad, or a Galaxy Note). But you can get a pen for, what? Less than a dollar at a corner store? (with 2-3 RON I can buy a set of pens, and they hold me for years - probably way more than the aforementioned devices).

    With that said, I am still looking for the perfect note-taking app for my personal use. It should have the following features:

    • As small as possible, so I can install it on older, not-so-large storage capacity devices of mine.
    • The ability to save notes in a format that can be opened on PC (either with the same app or other apps).

    I already found some that might fit the bill, but I am not sure which one to pick. Guess I’ll figure it out.