I have a fascination with note taking.
My life at the moment seems to consist of
Digital pens, while having several downsides (most of them are fat, for example – and one stressed sales person assumed I was recording one meeting where I docked my pen in its holder) do have a major advantage of being physical stuff which the customer can see, so allaying fears that you are doing your email whilst clicking away on the laptop. Tablets also have this advantage, they lay flat and everyone can see you taking notes as they talk. I’ve been in meetings where the leader has commanded everyone present to ‘close the lids of their laptops’ so as to get their attention – the fact I was merely taking notes from what he said didn’t wash.
I guess the ultimate would be some sort of unstructured, tagging concept map on a tablet which converted into structured data (with blanks) so I could export it as a presentation, spreadsheet, or document as needed. This of course brings me to think: am I creating a model for which the various instantiations are just views? Should I edit the raw data underlying the models – yet often the way that I edit needs to be through a view as well? (After all, often the order I receive data varies with the context of the meeting in which I am taking notes.)
Perhaps that for which I am looking does not exist. Perhaps I am doomed to a dismal search for the ‘perfect’ way of taking notes when all I really need to do is relax and use what information I already have. I agree a little with this since I recall when I threw away my diary I remembered appointments more accurately, not having that aid. Using the diary meant that I relied on it to remember things for me – and my memory grew correspondingly lax. I guess a similar thing occurs using sat-navs?