Commonplace Notes (2/3)

In my last post I went on about organized markdown notes, or rather, Obsidian, in my current case.

Digital doesn’t cover everything

But it doesn’t REALLY solve every situation. You can’t always sit and type into structured notes knowing exactly where your thoughts are supposed to go.

So I started looking into alternatives. A lot of people are comfortable doing this kind of thing in Obsidian too. A lot of people do things like Zettelkasten, and if you don’t know what that is there’s a Wiki for it.

Just get a notebook

But what works for me is just having a notebook handy. And just like my approach to never forgetting my wallet or my keys… I find it helpful if it’s hefty, substantial, and singular.

I don’t want to suddenly realize that “oh I didn’t write that down in THIS notebook”… not everybody works like this, but I see it as me sticking to the K.I.S.S-principle.

The Milimetrado 1000

I have one notebook. In my case it’s almost comedically big. I have the Milimetrado 1000 Pages. It really does have 1000 pages. It has “bible thin” pages that take surprisingly well to most pens, pencil or otherwise.

How I actually use it

My process is honestly very simple. I jot down sketches, mind-maps, tons and tons of bullet lists for things I need to deal with or structure up later. Anything I need out of my head and into something I can go through at a later time. Another name for a commonplace notebook is a brain dump, and that’s really all it is.

It comes with a nifty little bookmark built into it, so you always know where the next fresh page is. That’s about all I need from my notes, personally. It goes with me wherever I need to be for more than 5 hours.

Some days I just switch it up between checking boxes in the notebook and doing so in my Obsidian notes. The brain likes novelty, and switching things up keeps it from feeling like a chore.