Bullet Journaling For Work – The Analog And Digital Solution

[Robert_Boyd]

Situation – I manage a large company and my day is in meetings and email. In the meetings I take notes in bullet journal / note taking style. I use an A4 lined notebook and a Lamy 2k for note taking, I love it! At the end of the day I close out my day writing my bullets into emails so I can track them in outlook as actions for myself or others. I have even scanned in my 2015, 2016 and 2017 journals to PDF and dumped them (I like the minimal lifestyle).

 

Complication – Scanning in my journals takes time, and I have only done this at the end of the year when closing out a journal and opening a new one. If my pages were loose leaf then I could scan them in easily, in fact I could even have templates that I can fill out depending on the type of meeting. I could close out days or weeks and have my notes in digital, maybe make them searchable or at least tag topics, any handouts can be included into the scan. This would be easy then to review in a PDF reader for referencing past meetings etc. without leafing through my paper journal looking for the meeting.

 

Resolution – But what to do?

A5 vs A4 Templates,

IPad holder + Notepad / Clip board or something to carry paper and notes not yet scanned / processed.

Best application for reading the PDFs,

OCR on the journal notes?

Product to carry it all including the iPad…….

 

As I figure it out for myself I shall update you all, but if someone has tried something similar please tell me below. If this post is in the wrong place please also let me know. Thanks! And Have a happy productive day!

[Robert_Boyd]

Resolution – But what to do?

Summary (I shall edit and update this post for my journey)

 

I found an interesting thread here. https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/324579-fountain-pen-use-at-work-in-the-digital-age/

 

The Writing Part:

Here is an interesting post about making your own sheets, to insert into a Filofax style system.

How to make your own Filofax bullet journal dot grid paper inserts From <https://jbworld.com/dot-grid-paper-filofax-bullet-journal/>

Edited October 12, 2018 by Robert_Boyd

[BaronWulfraed]

Unfortunately, not usable with fountain pens...

 

https://us.moleskine.com/smart-writing-system

https://www.neosmartpen.com/en/

(Moleskine is using the Neo pen, but with their branding/marketing).

 

I really wish they could create a fountain pen for it, but keeping the ink off the camera window would be difficult. NOTE: the camera is not used to capture the writing itself, but to read the Ncode marks on the paper in order to determine position of the ballpoint tip.

 

It does have some internal memory so can be used without a full time BlueTooth link (but if you want the ability to change color/line width on the digital representation, you do need a phone/tablet with the app running).

[XYZZY]

I've pondered this before but not tried it yet... The power miter saw in my garage could rip the binding off an A5. If I needed an A4 then my neighbor's table saw would do the trick. Instant looseleaf. But it probably needs to be clamped between boards first to prevent it from flying into looseleaf while the saw is running. My biggest concern is whether the edges would be clean enough to run through the scanner, but that could be cleaned up on a paper cutter.

 

Q: do you have any software that will automatically recognize bullet journal formatting and separate action items, calendar items, general notes, and then do The Right Thing with them?

 

I refuse to accept any responsibility for injuries should you try that.

[XYZZY]

If it wasn't obvious, I interpreted the OP'S question as how to scan & archive journals once full so as to not have to archive by storing the physical journals: scan them and then dispose of the journal.

 

That's very different from taking handwritten notes and digitizing throughout the day or at the end of the day.

 

My personal interest would definitely be the former.

[XYZZY]

And apparently some Kinkos and bookbinders can remove binding for you using special tools for that job. Probably much safer, yet much less youtube-worthy

[ErrantSmudge]

Perhaps a notebook with removable pages, such as the Levenger Circa journals, would work here? (I mention the Circa only as an example, I bought one from Levenger a few years back and the paper was very unfriendly to fountain pens. There are competitors).

[wallylynn]

Not sure what the question is. Since the notes are typed up at the end of the day, there's no reason to scan.

 

I have a Staples Arc (Levinger Circa clone) with removeable pages. I'm using it for notes as I read articles and books. Carry a few sheets, insert when written.

 

In school, I took notes on loose computer paper and clipboard. Print my own grid on the paper.

 

Removing pages is satisfying if you have a nice paper cutter. Zip! I've seen coupon blades which is a tiny point that don't cut deeply.

[Robert_Boyd]

Resolution – But what to do?

Summary (I shall edit and update this post for my journey)

 

I found an interesting thread here. https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/324579-fountain-pen-use-at-work-in-the-digital-age/

 

The Writing Part:

Here is an interesting post about making your own sheets, to insert into a Filofax style system.

How to make your own Filofax bullet journal dot grid paper inserts From <https://jbworld.com/dot-grid-paper-filofax-bullet-journal/>

Well it seems that the edit function is time limited.

 

So https://www.xaprb.com/blog/2014/11/01/print-full-bleed-microsoft-word/ is a nice link for being about to use MS Word to template up your printable sheets of writing paper.

[Robert_Boyd]

Not sure what the question is. Since the notes are typed up at the end of the day, there's no reason to scan.

 

I type up the Actions, i don't type up the full notes, the information may be used as reference but i don't feel its vital to type it all up. I would like to scan, OCR for searching and then only keep the digital file for later access.

[pen2paper]

If Whitelines paper with it's built in corner code was available in your Au region, the paper type options (including loose) to app, to your productivity style could skip steps. It works from Android including some tablets, & iPhones, however I've yet to see app for iPad thought it could read from iPad. Perhaps Bontouch AB & Whitelines will have have development news or suggestions.

[oraxia]

...what are you using to scan your journals currently? Is there a reason you can't just open the notebook to the recently generated page(s) and scan them at the end of the day/week/etc. to get around the big scan-a-palooza at the end of the year?

 

I guess if you're generating many pages of notes per day, that might still be a hassle, but there's a lot of scanning apps out there that seem to do a good job (especially if you have an iPhone or iPad, since the cameras on those always seem superior to my Android phone). My husband favors GeniusScan, but I don't know if it would do OCR for handwriting. If you're already opening the book to transcribe parts to email, though, maybe just scan it at the same time?

[Dickbrowne]

Have you seen the Scribzee app?

 

I use red and black scribzee enabled notebooks, and the app uses the corner marks to align the page and adjust the angle so it is always legible.

 

Once the page is photographed, it can be filed in the app, and then it’s saved to the cloud.

 

I’m not sure if you can get the notebooks in your region, or if it’s suitable for your needs, but worth a look possibly.

[Honeybadgers]

Koukyo notebooks are removeable and replaceable, and the paper is very FP friendly and comes in A5, B5, and B4 sizes, and they are thick enough that a printer template wouldn't struggle.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

There is a way to do this. People who scan books use it. It takes some software and a pair of digital cameras.

 

http://diybookscanner.org/archivist/indexdf57.html?page_id=651

[katerchen]

I try to avoid digital altogether (funny, given my line of work). To me, the whole point of writing is to slow down and committing more to memory as I write.

 

I use a cascading system with three notebooks.

 

1. Regular spiral bound A5 (currently on a Maruman kick) for notes, scribbles, drag around to meetings ... basically everything.
2. Kokuyo A5 hardcover cloth-bound spiral notebook for daily planning and notes of high importance. Not organized by theme, only by day. Mark up with red as I progress in my day.
3. Second Kokuyo A5 hardcover cloth-bound with labelled dividers for long term notes. I usually carry over stuff from the planner (and to a lesser extent from the scratch notebook) that turn out to be bigger than I originally thought, or important for some other reason.

 

-k

[bogiesan]

How did we ever eat along in the olden days? Back when everything was monochrome?

 

Hire out the tedium.

 

Or take a look at how this was,done 20-50 years ago.

[j.a.j.]

A few ideas:

 

Good scanning apps on iOs / Android are IMO good enough for replacing scanner. So basically you could use almost any notebook friendly lay fat notebook.

 

Evernote is good for tagging & search. You can also import lots of other info for example from the web. Built in "scanning" is not as good on some dedicated apps but one can live with it especially as Evernote can, to some extent, make hand written text searchable with server side OCR. There is also basic team collaboration.

 

It might be good idea to get rid of Outlook in internal comms & task management. If you want to stick in MS ecosystem MS Planner is ok as it allows orthodox / custom Kanban boards which makes team task management way more efficient and with MS Teams you make communication more transparent.