In the movies, every researcher, scientist, and professor has some kind of cryptic notebook that contains all their life’s work and secrets. Usually this entails some younger relative trying to decipher/recover the notebook after the professor dies/goes missing. Lots of advice websites for research-oriented grad students suggest to keep a log of everything you do. Maybe I should, too.
My current system is basically using printer paper to write down or sketch out stuff I’m working on, which I then carry around in a folder. I usually carry the paper around until the stuff on it makes its way into latex or code or the stuff on the paper isn’t worthy of any more effort. Then I throw it away. It usually takes from a few days to a week or two for me to get a new sheet, fill it up, and do something with what I put on it. Sometimes I have several sheets going at once, which all go in the folder. There isn’t really any order to it either, just a bunch of bullet points on some idea or a sketch of something.
This isn’t really working out and I need a better way to organize everything, or at least keep it around in case I want to go back and look at it. A white board would be great, but you can’t carry it with you and there is also the issue of erasing stuff when you run out of space. So white boards are out. Plenty of computerized note taking/sketch programs are available, but writing stuff out can be faster and I like to make drawings and diagrams of stuff. I don’t have a wacom tablet or tablet PC to make sketches with, so that’s out too.
So, research notebooks sound like the answer. Except that I’m picky. I want a notebook with:
- Hardcover, so I can bear down on it without the need of a desk
- Spiral binding, so I can flip one side of it underneath the other to save space
- Grid rules, so I can lay out writing and sketches neatly
- Heavyweight paper, since I’m a heavy-handed writer and my writing pushes through thin paper
- 75-100 pages, so I don’t have to get a new one every month
It seems difficult to find such a notebook, even if it exists. I’ve been looking at BookFactory, which seems to have a lot of options, but I haven’t really found one yet that meets my specs. The closest I found was a sketchbook at the school bookstore that had everything but the grid rules, but the paper was also really coarse and not really good for handwriting.
Maybe I’ll find something. For now, I got a regular spiral notebook with grid rules and will see how that goes. At least I’ll try to keep everything I write down.
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