2. Number your pages. Number your cross references. Date as it makes sense but always have a primary key (aka page number) to reference any page in your notes.
3. Never use loose paper by themselves. They get lost everywhere and are hard to track. Always have a binding strategy, even the simplest staple combines 10 sheets of paper into logical organization.
5. Prefer cheap 70-sheet notebooks. Spend a few minutes with automatic counting machine to label every page: page1 on the front, and implicitly page 1.5 on the back. Only label the fronts of any notebook. Rarely use the back sheet as additional room, but prefer to use new pages.
6. Use notebooks like the FAT filesystem. Write linked lists of subjects. Ex: one set of running notes could be page 4, page 7, page 9, 9.5, 20. Keep the first two sheets (1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5) as reserved for your table of contents / page numbers of your 'files'.
7. Learn the art of rewriting notes. Delete old notes and rewrite them into better organization as you work forward. Anything worth writing is likely worth rewriting.
8. Write so much that most of your writing is trash. That's okay, simply skip the trash during your rewriting passes. You won't know what is or isn't trash until 6 months from now anyway so write everything down.
9. I prefer pencil. But a nice Pentel Kerry. Keep a pocket notebook and the pencil always with you. Rewrite notes from pocket notebook as per earlier rules.
10. Shop at Jetpens.com. or maybe not, you might buy too many things lol. I do admit that impulse buying a 70-page notebook from grocery stores / Walmart / pharmacies is highly important to me. Knowing how to work with a 70-page wire notebook is important if only because they're EVERYWHERE and dirt cheap. Your more permanent notes deserve a more expensive journal (bonus points if they are already prenumbered like LEUCHTTURM1917)
I too have my own preferences. What I've figured out about myself is that I like to flip between "practice" materials and "archival".
Practice notes are more like your preferences: 70-pager subject notebooks, pencil or ballpoint, clips and manila folders. Those are better for drawing in, because they are thin enough and transparent enough to trace through, and therefore you can refine a doodle into a more developed illustration without leaving the notebook. To go smaller, index cards are very portable and stay rigid enough to work outdoors on improvised surfaces. Those are what I like when I want to build up quick reference.
The "archival" materials are art projects: if you've really developed an idea, make it beautiful. This can be 80% tracing off the practice notes through a graphite transfer. Or it can go straight to digital/typed.
I don't aim for linked systems of notes at all. What I've found is that either I copy it all into the one place I need, or I don't need it. The copying is the important part. Once that's done, it's been "loaded" in my head as well, and I can move on.
1. Buy an automatic counting machine. https://www.amazon.com/Cosco-Automatic-Numbering-6-Digits-02...
2. Number your pages. Number your cross references. Date as it makes sense but always have a primary key (aka page number) to reference any page in your notes.
3. Never use loose paper by themselves. They get lost everywhere and are hard to track. Always have a binding strategy, even the simplest staple combines 10 sheets of paper into logical organization.
4. Prefer 2-hole punch, 2-hole bindings (https://wwwsqp8.officedepot.com/a/products/640746/ACCO-Premi...) for large documents.
Use https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/543712/Office-Depot-B... for smaller amounts of notes of loose leaf paper.
5. Prefer cheap 70-sheet notebooks. Spend a few minutes with automatic counting machine to label every page: page1 on the front, and implicitly page 1.5 on the back. Only label the fronts of any notebook. Rarely use the back sheet as additional room, but prefer to use new pages.
6. Use notebooks like the FAT filesystem. Write linked lists of subjects. Ex: one set of running notes could be page 4, page 7, page 9, 9.5, 20. Keep the first two sheets (1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5) as reserved for your table of contents / page numbers of your 'files'.
7. Learn the art of rewriting notes. Delete old notes and rewrite them into better organization as you work forward. Anything worth writing is likely worth rewriting.
8. Write so much that most of your writing is trash. That's okay, simply skip the trash during your rewriting passes. You won't know what is or isn't trash until 6 months from now anyway so write everything down.
9. I prefer pencil. But a nice Pentel Kerry. Keep a pocket notebook and the pencil always with you. Rewrite notes from pocket notebook as per earlier rules.
10. Shop at Jetpens.com. or maybe not, you might buy too many things lol. I do admit that impulse buying a 70-page notebook from grocery stores / Walmart / pharmacies is highly important to me. Knowing how to work with a 70-page wire notebook is important if only because they're EVERYWHERE and dirt cheap. Your more permanent notes deserve a more expensive journal (bonus points if they are already prenumbered like LEUCHTTURM1917)