Bridging the Digital & Analog Domain - Paper Notes, Post-Its etc

Lounge
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I decided to break out this from my other post (Workflow Assistance/Help (GTD) - #12 by ClubmanPlus850) as it feels more standalone

Whenever I am at my desk, I rely on digital notetaking (like Joplin); however when I am away from the desk, I use Post-It's ... a LOT! For example over a weekend, anytime I want to capture something, it goes on a post-it. On average I would say I end up with maybe 5 post-it's per day I'm not at my desk. On a weekend, that is Friday night -> sunday Night. Vacation time, it can quickly get out of hand!

Why Post-It's (and not a phone)?

  1. They are fast; with a phone I need to find my phone, unlock it, locate the app, open a note, and type the note - the post-it is written in the time it takes to unlock my phone.
  2. I don't like to be "always on my phone", when people see me writing something (quickly) it has a different meaning than if i'm typing on my phone
  3. if i need to draw something, it's easy

Sure, I could use dictation, but I've never been a fan of that, so i fall back to post-it's.

What I normally end up doing is taking a photo of the note and attaching it - which works, but not ideal as it's not searchable, so I have to add some key words, along with filing it in the right place

does anyone have a good solution to bridge these domains? I have a wacom bamboo spark folio (https://www.wacom.com/en-se/products/smartpads/bamboo-slate-and-bamboo-folio) which is a good start; I have seen an open API for it, so maybe I can link it to Joplin directly. (though I would love this tech to be post-it size and/or built into a phone case!)

with the bamboo, one solution I considered was to use a series of boxes in a pre-set position which correlate to a tag or notebook in Joplin - the idea being that when you take a note, you color in a box, and using image recognition, the backend can work out where it should be filed (with relying on handwriting recognition, which has a hard time with my handwriting!) - if you take notes for a specific purposes, you can actually then use pre-printed templates and forms - which opens up options for further auto-tagging and keyword recognition.

1 Like
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Although I really like your thoughts … I think this might do what you are looking for Rocketbook integration - #9 by rubbsdecvik

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hi @meldarionqeusse I have looked at Rocketbook before, nice that there is an integration to joplin - however looking over the links etc, im not sure it would solve my issue of automatically filing? i may have missed something though. I have the worlds worst handwriting and recognition normally fails 99.9% of the time! So i think in the long run, Rocketbook would probably be the same as the Wacom I have now - although cool that the Rocket is in smaller sizes, i might need one just for that; also reusable paper... so definitely worth another look

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Definitely it is not as a complete solution as you are suggesting but might be helpful in the interim. If there's a proper solution to bridge the physical world with Joplin that would totally make Joplin 1000 time better even for me I find that pen and paper are still what's social acceptable even taking notes on Goodnotes on the ipad feels awkward in front of people

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@meldarionqeusse agree - I am beginning to think I need to sit down for a day and learn how to write some plugins. The Rocket flow though, as you say, is pretty good - the only thing I would want to do is add some ability to autotag notes; which is where the idea i had of a set of boxes which could be image recognized; I played with Googles handwriting recognition, and if I wrote really slowly and deliberately it could make out a few words, but not reliable enough for my purposes - the boxes is almost fail-safe to basic catogorization (making sure the notes go to the right place). and then handwriting recognition can be attempted (and manually fixed based on an cofidence rating)... good thing summer holidays are coming up; sounds like I have a project