The tyranny of the notebook
I just want to find the perfect system for tracking the important information that crosses my path on a daily basis. Is this too much to ask?
There seems to be an unlimited number of approaches to this endeavor — at least based upon all the Medium articles I’ve read on the subject. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate all these writers sharing their experiences. Here are a few examples:
There is always something to glean from the experiences of others. But I haven’t found a solution to my notebook problem yet. And now I’m going to add to this maelstrom of opinion. (But don’t expect to come away from this article with the notebook problem solved.)
This is a story about how just having a notebook to take notes suddenly makes me feel I have homework to do. And I haven’t been in a classroom in 40 years.
I resist. I tense up. I start and I stop. I have a stack of notebooks of various manufacture. Some ruled, some dotted, some gridded and — when I’ve been particularly daring — some with unmarked, blank pages (for some reason they remain blank even after I’ve carried the book around a while). Each of my notebooks has a beginning and only a rare few have entries that take up even as many as half the pages. Just unwrapping a new notebook now makes me enter a state of despair.
Those annoyingly creative people who add wonderful artistic flourishes to their journals don’t help. They are like that smart girl in English class who got all the answers right, only making my own difficulty figuring out what a gerund was more pronounced. (For the record, I envy those arty people and would do the same thing if I were capable of it. Also, I wanted to go study with that smart girl.)
I’ve come to call this feeling “the tyranny of the notebook.” It’s that sense that the notebook itself is judging me. That it demands I approach note-taking with certain standards:
- For content
- For neatness
- For organization
- For completeness
I know. I know. This is really the tyranny of my own mind. The notebook has nothing to do with it. Nor does the system I try to employ. Because, let’s face the truth, any reasonably well-thought out note-taking system will work if I am disciplined about my note-taking habits. And no system will work if I am not disciplined.
Sure, some systems can perhaps make it a little easier to be disciplined. If it seems fun to keep notes. Or if the system has less friction. For example, in my experience, keeping a bullet journal is fun, but there is a lot of friction — that is, a lot of fidgeting with the notebook — even before you can start or continue taking your notes.
Often the friction comes from even knowing what to write about. What is “noteworthy” and what is not? Many years ago I filled three notebooks with daily entries while I spent a year bicycling around America. The topic seemed easy to identify. There was no head-scratching or wondering what I’d want to read about months and years later. I would want an account of my days on this adventure. But 35 years later, when I finally decided to transcribe these notebooks, I found that many times the events that were most memorable to me never even made it onto the pages of the journal.
Maybe the problem is simply thinking too much about the process. Just write it down and sort it out later. That sounds good, but way too often I am not in a situation that is conducive to writing anything down at the time. And telling myself, “Remember to write about this back at your desk” is about as helpful as telling myself to be six inches taller.
Supposedly there are all these people out there who whip out a Field Notes notebook and pen wherever they are and whatever the situation and record something they want to remember. In my 63 years I have never once met anyone in real life who did this, at least not in my presence. And I refuse to believe this is simply the result of me being that noteworthless.
I know it seems I am just making up excuses to continue to take poor, incomplete notes. And I am. The search for the perfect note-taking system seems a lot more fun than actually taking notes. God forbid, if I ever actually land on the ideal note-taking system, I’ll have to, you know, spend time taking notes!!!
So now I know what the problem is. I am procrastinating, blaming the process instead of examining my actual commitment to building a library of great and useful notes.
Now that I know this, let me crack open a new notebook to start the year 2020. Where’s my pen?
