I realized the importance of note-making only a few years ago (and found wikidpad only a few weeks ago), so in my current system I have notes only about recent things. There are three main categories: “personal”, “job-related” and “knowledge”.
The “personal” data are on my home computer only, and I wouldn’t want any other person to see them. (Nothing too embarassing, but it would be a violation of privacy.) This mostly means contacts (one page for each person, various categories) and plans (something like GTD).
The “job-related” data are on my work computer only, and if I change job in the future, I would throw most of it away (except for contacts on colleagues). This contains information about the company, our projects, and my tasks.
The “knowledge” data mostly contains notes about programming languages and frameworks. It’s like a personal wikipedia / wikibooks. I transfer it on a memory stick between work and home. I wouldn’t mind someone else reading the info, there is nothing personal, but if they copied it, I would feel my intelectual property was violated.
I also have a box full of papers with various notes I have taken in the past (mostly at university), and I used to believe that one day I will digitalize them, but that will probably never happen. However, keeping the box is not a problem.
When I work with computer, I make notes on the computer. When away from computer, I use any piece of paper, and later put them on my table with the intention to digitalize them later, but in fact the heap only keeps growing. (One day I will probably put them in the box with old notes, too.) But the idea is to rewrite the notes by hand; because I have to put it in the system and hyperlink it with the existing information.
I realized the importance of note-making only a few years ago (and found wikidpad only a few weeks ago), so in my current system I have notes only about recent things. There are three main categories: “personal”, “job-related” and “knowledge”.
The “personal” data are on my home computer only, and I wouldn’t want any other person to see them. (Nothing too embarassing, but it would be a violation of privacy.) This mostly means contacts (one page for each person, various categories) and plans (something like GTD).
The “job-related” data are on my work computer only, and if I change job in the future, I would throw most of it away (except for contacts on colleagues). This contains information about the company, our projects, and my tasks.
The “knowledge” data mostly contains notes about programming languages and frameworks. It’s like a personal wikipedia / wikibooks. I transfer it on a memory stick between work and home. I wouldn’t mind someone else reading the info, there is nothing personal, but if they copied it, I would feel my intelectual property was violated.
I also have a box full of papers with various notes I have taken in the past (mostly at university), and I used to believe that one day I will digitalize them, but that will probably never happen. However, keeping the box is not a problem.
When I work with computer, I make notes on the computer. When away from computer, I use any piece of paper, and later put them on my table with the intention to digitalize them later, but in fact the heap only keeps growing. (One day I will probably put them in the box with old notes, too.) But the idea is to rewrite the notes by hand; because I have to put it in the system and hyperlink it with the existing information.
I almost always have a pen and paper with me.