Notes kept by hand, in one place

Why keep a notebook by hand

Writing by hand is slow, and that is the whole argument for it. A keyboard can nearly keep up with speech, so it tempts you into transcribing; a pen cannot, so it forces you to decide what the sentence is actually for. Work on longhand note-taking keeps finding the same trade — fewer words on the page, and a better grip on what they meant.

The second argument is plainer: one place. A notebook is a single queue, and everything joins the back of it — a phone number, the shape of an argument, the name of a plant, the thing you must not forget on Thursday, all in the order they happened. You stop deciding where something belongs and simply write it down, which is usually the difference between a note taken and a note lost.

The third is re-reading, and it is the one people skip. A notebook nobody opens twice is a drawer with a spine. The value compounds only when you go back: you find the same problem written three different ways across five months, and the fourth way — the one you write in the margin on the day you re-read — is the one that works.

Three ways to keep one

These are not rival systems so much as three different jobs. Most people end up with two notebooks: a running log they carry, and something slower kept at a desk. Pick the job first, then the book.

Choosing paper and pen

Paper weight is given in gsm — grams per square metre. Ordinary copier paper is 70 to 80 gsm; most notebooks made for everyday writing sit between 80 and 100; paper made with fountain pens in mind is usually 90 to 120. Weight is only half the story, though. How the sheet is sized and calendered — its surface treatment and smoothing — decides whether wet ink sits on top of the fibres or wicks into them, which is why a heavy but absorbent sheet can behave worse than a thin, well-sized one.

Three different complaints get muddled together, and they have different cures.

• Feathering — the line grows fuzzy whiskers as ink spreads along the fibres. Almost always the paper, not the pen; a finer nib hides it, better paper removes it.
• Bleed-through — ink reaches the reverse side as a wet mark. Wet, broad nibs on thin, absorbent sheets. Write on one side, or change the paper.
• Ghosting — you can see the writing from the other side, but nothing has soaked through. Normal, harmless, and entirely a matter of taste.

Pens divide roughly by how the ink gets out. Ballpoints use an oil-based paste: it dries on contact, tolerates damp or cheap paper, and never bleeds, but it needs pressure and lays a paler line. Gel pens use water-based pigment — darker, smoother, no pressure required — at the cost of a slower dry, so the side of your hand can smear a fresh line, which left-handed writers feel most. Fountain pens are the kindest over a long session, because the ink flows without pressure, and the most demanding of the paper underneath. Pencil grades run from H (hard, light, clean) through HB to B (soft, dark, easily smudged); HB or B suits daily writing, 2B smears against a facing page, and hard grades can emboss a thin sheet so the next page carries a ghost of the last.

Indexing and re-reading

Number the pages before you need them — bottom outer corner, twenty at a sitting, or one as you finish each. An unnumbered notebook cannot be indexed at all, and on the day you finally want an index you will not sit down and number two hundred pages.

Leave the last three or four pages blank and treat them as the index: a term on the left, page numbers running after it, a new number added each time the term comes up again. Index only what is worth finding twice. An index that records everything is just the notebook again, in a worse order.

Related entries get threaded by page number. When page 84 picks up what page 31 started, write 31 at the head of the new entry, then turn back and write 84 in the margin of the old one. Two-way pointers cost five seconds and turn a pile of dated fragments into something you can follow in either direction.

Then re-read on a schedule: once a month, the last month, with a pen in hand. Mark what is still live, index what has earned it, and copy anything genuinely unfinished onto today's page so it stays in front of you. Twenty minutes is usually enough, and it is the step that makes the rest of the work pay.

Habits that keep it going

Most notebooks are abandoned in the third week, and nearly always for the same handful of reasons. They are all avoidable.

• Same time each day. Attach it to something that already happens — the first coffee, the last ten minutes at the desk. A habit hung on an existing habit survives; one that depends on remembering does not.
• Cure the first-page problem early. A new notebook invites you to be worthy of it, so nothing gets written. On day one, write the date and a dull list of errands on page one deliberately. The book stops being precious and becomes a tool.
• Date every entry, including the year. You will be certain you remember which year it was, and you will be wrong. A bare “14 April” is half a date.
• Do not tear pages out. Cross things out instead, legibly. A record you edit by removal is a record you stop trusting, and the embarrassing pages are usually the informative ones.
• Finish one before starting the next. Write the start and end dates on the first page when you close it, and shelve it in order. Two half-used notebooks are worth less than one full one.