PTPL 055: Physical Notes are Better Than Digital, and Vice Versa
PLUS my strange experience with flashcards, and how an old chopping board makes for better notes
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Welcome to the Plain Text, Paper — Less Productivity Digest! I’m Ellane, and this is a once-a-week taster of the unusual, the helpful, and the delightfully mundane, as well as the next instalment in my quest to future proof and simplify my digital-analog workflow.
This week —
Pros and cons of physical vs digital note taking tools
My odd quandary with keeping flashcards in plain text
How pegs and chopping boards can help you take and make notes
Productivity Tips and Inspiration
Physical vs Digital PKM — Curtis McHale ✅ Physical notes:
less distraction
slower writing vs faster typing encourages summarising in own words
it’s easier to remember the content because more sense are involved (ref. How to Speak sketchnote) Curtis mentions being able to quickly find his place in a physical book by flipping through it, something I’ve done for years. I rarely mark my place in a physical book, because I don’t need to. Kindle has a kind of flip-through feature, but it doesn’t work the same way for me as flipping through a paper book.
❌ Physical Notes:
a note can exist in only one place at a time
you can’t use additional tools to make connections between notes
it’s easy to fall into the prettifying trap
✅ Digital Notes:
organisational tools like folders, tags, and backlinks
backup !
multiple methods for data input; all you need is your phone
❌ Digital Notes:
the multitude of organisational options can be distracting / overwhelming
ease of data collection often equals ease of collecting cruft
everything else a digital device does can distract from your notes
You can’t always blame your tools though, most often the problem is you. Analogue or Digital can be an excellent system for your notes if you are disciplined enough to work inside the constraints of that system.
— Curtis McHale
Curtis uses a hybrid system, because that works best for him. The lesson from this article for me is that no-one can step in and tell you what’s right for you — although many will try. You have to figure this out for yourself!
Remember: the type of system you use matters more than either type of tool.
Adventures in Plain Text (and a little paper)
Should I keep my language learning flashcards in Obsidian, as well as Anki?
Truly, I can’t believe I’m even asking this question. On one hand, my internal answer is, “it’s plain text, so of course you should!!” But on the other hand, I note an internal sense of ambivalence that is most unlike me.
don’t trash the current system and create another, without taking time to count the cost and evaluate the alternatives
Perhaps because I’ve recently spent numerous hours double-handling things from one app to another? Maybe I need some space to come to terms with what appears to have been a completely unnecessary waste of time. smiles philosophically Ah well, it’s only a waste if I don’t learn something. My takeaway is mindfulness: don’t trash the current system and create another, without taking time to count the cost and evaluate the alternatives.
For now, I’m trusting Anki — and making regular backups.
Paper, pegs, and chopping boards
I read with interest Richard Carter’s description of the way he uses pegs and chopping boards to make note taking easier, and using a computer more comfortable while sitting away from a table.
According to the photograph in the article, Richard uses a nice soft plastic peg to attach reference paper to his laptop. The type of peg strikes me as important: the highly tensioned, bent-wire stainless steel type seem likely to damage your screen over time.
This quote about his father from Charles Darwin’s son, Francis, in 1887, evokes a lovely image:
After he had read his paper, came his time for writing letters. These, as well as the MS. of his books, were written by him as he sat in a huge horse-hair chair by the fire, his paper supported on a board resting on the arms of the chair.
I have a nice old piece of wood (battered, but unchristened by the culinary arts), that lives between my lounge and the wall, always ready to sit across my lap when I’m doing work away from my desk.
The Plain Text, Paper-Less Productivity Digest explores productivity through a future-proof, plain text mindset, with a soft spot for the paper that counts. Past episodes are available free for Medium members in my PTPL List, and can also be accessed by non-Medium members for free—for a few days after they’re released—here on Substack.
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