How to enter notes

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 4545

Posted by pma
2005-11-04 03:58:27

How do you guys handle the data entry of notes - reference notes, or notes from meetings, seminars, conferences, etc. ?

When in a meeting do you enter your notes directly into some electronic device (for myself I’m considering purchasing the new Alphasmart NEO for this purpose), or do you take your notes on paper and transfer them to the computer when available?

Do you enter all your notes in your favorite info mgmt app (e.g. Zoot or InfoHandler)? Or do you store your notes in more fragmented manners ?

And my main consideration: Do you split your notes into separate items, or do you simply enter all the notes from e.g. a meeting into one item? The advantage of the first approach is of course that you can categorise much more precisely (indeed, a sensible categorisation may be quite impossible if including all the notes from a meeting in one item, as many different issues could be discussed - the same goes for notes from e.g. a book.). On the other hand, it increases the work it is to enter the data into the application, if you split it into separate notes. This is especially true, if the app needs a title for each note, such as InfoHandler.

For myself, I aim at splitting notes up into separate entities, so that they can be managed independently. But I started wondering when trying out InfoHandler again, because of its need for titles for each item. When notes are maybe just a few lines each, I find it weird, distracting and time consuming to think up a title for the single paragraph that a note typically are. It would make more sence to use energy for thinking up such a title, if you kept all the notes from e.g. a meeting together in one item - but then, again, this limits the possibilities you have for categorising them, and I would very much doubt that people in this forum would find this the optimal approach. But please correct me if I’m wrong.

Peter.

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