It appears that note-taking is hard work. I have many ideas brewing in my head, but the conditions to capture them are not always ideal. I may be taking care of my daughter or showering or whatever. To be efficient I’d have:
- to stop,
- fetch an annotation medium,
- think,
- and write.
Like I am doing right now, on a computer. And this usually takes some time that I could be using for something else. I’d just capture the idea, like snapping my fingers, and walk away with the confidence that I can access it later.
I know that voice recording seems to be way quicker, but you still require a device to record. It needs to be with you, and you have to still stop and record. And the output is a lousy audio that is nearly unusable to me. I don’t like to replay and stay put to listen. Reading a note is a far superior experience for me. My eyes can skim text at the speed of light, or focus when it gets interesting.
I don’t trust transcription apps. I use them at work and they are terrible. It’s fine for that use case, but not for my personal notes.
On a positive note, stopping to write is such a therapeutic feeling. Thoughts unravel in a very curious way. Creativity is more afloat and parallel thinking occurs with more frequency. Writing forms the right conditions to put the brain working on under-developed ideas.
I guess I need to stick to Google Keep for now, as it has been serving well for fleeting notes, and to set up regular writing sessions to crystallize my notes or to develop ideas.