The image attached to this post is of the notebook I used to plan Twisted Metal. You can see the map of Shull I made to keep track of where everything was, as well as some of my reminders from when I was editing the first draft. Sticking out of the book are notes I printed out from the internet about mineral composition and some old newspaper articles.
I’ve included some other images below. One of them contains the original sketch of a teardrop ship that features in The Recursion Series and the Fair Exchange series.
I don’t use handwritten notebooks any more, everything is collected electronically and stored on Obsidian. It’s a lot more convenient, it allows me to place links between different parts of my worlds. Having everything stored in the cloud means I can browse my ideas on my phone, I put links directly to sources rather and I can work on prose and copy and paste it straight into the MS when its ready.
But even so, there is something special about a handwritten notebook. The book records the passage of time in a way that is more interesting than simple date stamps. The different inks, the stains, the coffee rings, the crumbs caught in the pages, the dog ears. The fact that you started at the beginning and worked through to the end (sort of…)
I still like notebooks now, but I’ve weaned myself off them. I have an artist friend: her notebooks are wonderful to look at. But she draws beautiful illustrations and has wonderful handwriting. Looking back now, I can barely read my own notes.
My colleague recently noticed me updating my todo list.
“Have you really included walk the dog on your list?” he asked. “Even if you did forget, wouldn’t the dog remind you?”
The dog would remind, but that’s no reason for omitting the task.
I’ve followed GTD for years. One of the most useful bits of advice it gives is to capture everything, and I learned a long time ago this means EVERYTHING.
Yes, I wouldn’t forget to walk the dog, but walking the dog will take an hour of my time and this is time I can’t use for something else. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to use the time for anything else. I like walking. I like walking the dog. This is something I want to do.
It’s important to write everything down so I know how much time I have for things I want to do and things I have to do. That way I ensure I do both.
I wrote in some detail about my GTD process years ago. I’ve recently removed those posts from my website as part of the ongoing reorganisation.
The reason for removing the post is that Todoist explained it all far better than I did. If you’ve never seen GTD before I strongly suggest you follow this link. It might just change your life.
Speaking of Todoist, I’m planning a new section to discuss my current writing tools and how they’re evolving. Watch this space.
As I mention last week, I’ve moved my notes to Obsidian. I’m going to talk about Obsidian another time, for the moment I want to talk about the notes themselves. Specifically, why I’ve converted all my notes to markdown.
A writer lives by their notes. Ideas; scenes; character sketches; dialogue; impressions, all carefully recorded and waiting to take on life someday in a story. I remember seeing Poul Anderson’s carefully typed list of story ideas in the science fiction museum in Seattle and feeling a warm glow of recognition. Not only that, but validation. I was doing this right.
I’ve got notes going back decades. Notes written in old exercise books, cheap reporter’s notebooks and expensive leather bound journals. I’ve experimented with devices such as Psion Organisers, Palm Pilots and even an iPod Touch.
The trouble with storing notes electronically used to be exporting them to a new device. Cross platform software like Evernote was a revelation as it meant you only needed to enter your notes once and then you could find them anywhere.
Evernote, Apple Notes, One Note and the like are fantastic. But what if you want to change to a new application? That’s where the problems arise.
The trouble is the way your notes look on the screen is not the same as the way your notes are stored on the computer.
<note>
<title>This is a Heading</title>
<created>20230727T080748Z</created>
<updated>20230727T080830Z</updated>
<note-attributes>
<author>Tony Ballantyne</author>
</note-attributes>
<content>
<![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE en-note SYSTEM "http://xml.evernote.com/pub/enml2.dtd"><en-note><ul><li><div><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">Here’s some text</span></div></li><li><div><a href="https://tonyballantyne.com" rev="en_rl_none"><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);">Here’s a link to my website</span></a></div></li></ul><div><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="--en-markholder:true;"><br/></span></span></div></en-note> ]]>
</content>
</note>
If you look carefully you can see the original text, along with metadata such as when the note was created, and formatting data such as the text colours. It’s hard to extract the relevant information from all that.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that Evernote is one of the good guys, they make it easy to export your data, they don’t go out of their way to obfuscate things and keep you in their system.
Here’s a better way of storing the above, this time using markdown.
# This is a Heading
- Here's some text
- [Here's a link to my website](https://tonyballantyne.com)
Looking at that you can understand why it would be sensible to store your notes in that format. It’s easy to read, it’s easy to transfer.
That’s why I’ve converted all my notes to markdown. They’re now stored on my devices, not in the cloud. I can invest the time in getting them just right without having to worry about having to convert them in the future.
So what about Obsidian? Obsidian has many fantastic features that I’ll talk about later, but the bottom line is that it functions as a markdown reader and editor.
In other words, if I decide I don’t like Obsidian in the future, I’ll simply choose another application that handles markdown.
Here’s what Stephan Ango, one of the guys behind Obsidian, has to say about this.
I know, I know. I’ve been in and out of love with Evernote for years now. You and I both know I’ll be probably writing a post in a year’s time saying how I’m using it again.
But not for now.
There are many, many positive things about Evernote. It’s the only app that does everything I need. The web app is superb, the web clipper and the facility to email notes are unequalled. You don’t realise just how thoroughly Evernote covers your needs until you try another app.
But there are problems too. Evernote’s direction of travel has diverged from mine. I don’t need RTE, I’m not really interested in AI support.
I want something that takes me to the right note straight away, that allows me to edit my notes quickly and effectively. I want to be able to get information into and out of the system without having to download it first. I want to be able to rearrange things without hassle. And that’s where Obsidian excels.
Obsidian isn’t perfect. Its not for casual users, the lack of a web app is a big problem, especially in a work environment with strict firewalls (I’ve bought an iPad to use at work to get round this). But the pluses are so much more than the minuses. Evernote seems to have lost interest in updating the note editor, the editing experience in Obsidian is fantastic, partly because it’s all based on Markdown, partly because it’s just so well thought out.
Even so, I would have probably remained with Evernote but for two things. First, they ceased development on the Linux client. This might be temporary, but no Linux support is always a deal breaker for me. I believe in paying for the software I use. I’m not paying for something that doesn’t support my preferred platform
But more importantly, it’s the realisation that it’s been five years since Ian Small acknowledged Evernote had stagnated and started to turn things around. Bending Spoons are making great strides in fixing things, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if in three months it will be near perfect, but that will be too late for me. Six months ago I got fed up with notes not syncing, I downloaded Yarle and jumped ship to Obsidian and I’ve never looked back.
I still use Evernote. On those occasions when I want to share or collaborate its ideal. I still use the web app. I may yet be back, fully on board, in a year’s time, but for the moment I love Obsidian.
Many people in the Personal Knowledge Management field are getting excited by Maps of Content: a new way of organizing your notes.
A Map of Content is simply a note containing links to other notes. Now that Evernote has upped its linking capabilities, Maps of Content are now an option for Evernote users.
This post will help you get started
Begin by making a new note called the Home Note. You can star this or pin it to your dashboard.
In your home note start writing about yourself. Here’s an example
My name is Tony. The main things in my life are my family, my job as teacher and playing the piano.
Now look at that sentence. There are three areas in my life, family, teaching and piano, so I now create three new notes: Family, Teaching and Piano
Go back to the Home note and add links to those notes. It’s easy to do this on Evernote by hitting Ctrl + Alt + K on Windows or Cmd + Opt + K on Apple then using the Select a Note dialogue. Here I am selecting my newly created Teaching note.
Now my Home note is done I go to one of the linked notes and start filling it in. Here’s an example:
I already have notes for the classes I teach so it’s straightforward to add links to them.
Now I can go to each class and start adding links or thoughts directly there.
My Maps of Content are building into a web of notes. I can navigate forwards using my links and backwards using the new backlinks feature.
The beauty of making Maps of Content is that I’m planning what I’m doing at the same time as I’m structuring my notes.
Using Maps of Content is a great way to grow your notes organically. Folders are no longer used for navigation, they’re there for housekeeping only.
The great thing about this system is that you can run Maps of Content alongside your existing system for organisation. You’re just adding a new way to find the right note at the right time
Here are screen shots of the process so far:
Why not give Maps of Content a try? They might just change your life…
To slightly misquote Kate Sanborn, writing is 1% inspiration and 99% hard work.
When inspiration strikes, the world pauses, and the sky lights up. Everything about your story becomes clear, and you walk with a spring in your step for the rest of the day. You don’t need to capture inspiration; it fills your world.
This post isn’t about that 1%. It’s about other 99%, capturing all those little scraps that make up a novel. It’s about preparing the ground in which inspiration can take root.
Capture emotion, not just description
Every writer carries a notebook with them for recording scraps. I still do, but most of my captures nowadays are via the Evernote app on my phone. Why my phone? Because I nearly always have it with me, and because it has a camera.
There’s something about capturing a scene live. Sol Stein said that writing is about communicating emotion. Good writers don’t just describe what scenes look like, they capture the emotions inherent in those scenes. That’s why when I see something interesting, I don’t just describe what it looks like, I describe how it makes me feel.
This is a picture of a tree near my house. I didn’t take the picture because it looked nice, but rather because something about the light and dark made me think of how the seasons were changing and time was passing.
I used Evernote to capture the image. Why? Because pictures just get lost on my camera roll, while saving them as notes means I can write comments beneath the picture itself.
Remember: When making notes, you’re adding emotion, not just description.
Take a walk
For me, the best way to get ideas—the best way to cure writer’s block, for that matter—is to take a walk. I can’t stress enough the importance of taking walks. I’ve written about that here. And here. I’m not the only person to think so, by the way.
Go for a walk and look around. Don’t listen to music; let your mind wander. The ideas will come. Start capturing your ideas—and don’t forget to capture the emotions that come with them.
Using the quick notes widget on Android, I can end up with 40 or 50 notes which I then merge when I get home. Of course, you could add all the ideas to the same note if you prefer.
Walking isn’t only about capturing ideas, it’s a distraction that allows your mind to stop consciously trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Instead, those pieces are left to float free, to be jiggled into place by the subconscious. Writing is about getting to a place where the subconscious can take over. Letting your mind wander free is essential, and walking helps you to do it.
A good walk can produce a lot of notes. Not all of them will relate to the current work in process—these need to be retained and revisited later. Systems such as Zettelkasten are a great way to do this, and you can replicate this to a certain extent by using tags in Evernote.
My writing process
Tags are one of Evernote’s most powerful features. Using tags, I can find all my characters, for example, no matter which story they are a part of. You can read more about my tagging system here.
Every so often, I go through my notes. I tag them by story (for example, #threebears) and by things such as character, beat, and worldbuilding. Once you have all your notes neatly tagged, it’s time to sit down and write that story.
Here’s how Evernote will write your book for you.
It won’t.
Of course, it won’t. Evernote is a productivity app, not a literary bot. No system is going to write your book for you, and that’s a good thing because if there were such a system, then writing would be no fun.
Here’s my real writing process:
I sit down and start writing. I allow the words to flow onto the page while I wait for my subconscious to take over.
My process is all about getting myself to a place where my subconscious can do its own thing. I believe that you should trust in your characters and listen to what they have to say. If you’re following your characters and letting them be themselves, then the story will unfold—maybe not how you want it, but in the way that it wants to go. The trouble comes when you try and force your characters to be what they’re not, when you twist them and make them act in arbitrary fashions to satisfy your initial plot. That’s when the contradictions build up, and the story crashes. If you can see that happening, it’s time to go out for a walk…
Stuck for ideas with NaNoWriMo approaching? Then don’t just sit there. Get out and capture some emotions!
You’re a teacher: it’s Sunday evening and you can’t relax as you have work tomorrow. Why is that?
Partly it’s stage fright. Those outside the profession don’t understand the necessary performance that every teacher undertakes in the classroom. Take a tip from professional musicians: they know the best cure for performance anxiety is to be thoroughly prepared.
Lack of preparation is a big cause of stress: that nagging feeling that there’s something really important that you should be working on while you’re busy tackling day to day tasks.
Trust the System
Productivity Systems like GTD can help you tackle this stress: I talk about GTD here.
GTD boils down to writing down every job, no matter how small. Once you’ve done that you just need to make sure the jobs turn up in the right order. That way you can focus on the task in hand.
If you believe your system is working then you’ll trust that the right task will be presented to you when it needs to be done. Nothing will be forgotten.
Use the Calendar
Evernote offers a number of ways to ensure that you see the right task at the right time. Every teacher should Connect Evernote to Google Calendar. You may be lucky, your lessons may already be available on just such a calendar. If not, it’s worth the time spent inputting the lessons yourself.
Once you can see your lessons in the calendar, you can begin to add notes to the individual events.
Each lesson can have its own note containing reminders on things such as students to chase and homework to set. Pro top: tag your notes with the name of the class. That way you can quickly filter to all notes relating to that class.
One thing, don’t repeat yourself. If your teaching materials and marks are already in the school’s learning platform or MIS, leave them there. If you duplicate materials you won’t know which ones you last updated.
But teaching isn’t just about lessons. What about the other jobs that need to be done tomorrow?
That’s where tasks come in…
Five Tasks a Day
Tasks are your todo list. Add due dates to your tasks but be realistic: you can’t do everything tomorrow. The question you should ask yourself isn’t what COULD I do tomorrow but what HAS to be done tomorrow? Adding a due date to your tasks means you know that you won’t miss the tasks that HAVE to be done that day.
I aim to complete five tasks a day. Why five? Because five works for me. I look for a balance of bigger tasks such as marking a set of books and smaller tasks such as phoning a parent. Choosing a set number of tasks helps you to manage your expectations: you’re never going to complete everything that you want to do. Trying to do so leads to stress.
Your Day on a Page
Lastly, have your home page set up. Tasks and Calendar. Your day on a page. You can see tomorrow’s jobs at a glance.
Enjoy your Sunday Evening
Now that you know that tomorrow is sorted you can forget it. It’s time to unwind and enjoy your Sunday evening…
Four keyboard shortcuts you shouldn’t be without (and one Evernote really should implement…)
Want to know the easiest way to improve your productivity?
Stop using the mouse.
Watch an IT professional and you’ll see that their hands never leave the keyboard. They know that it takes a couple of seconds to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, and then to move the mouse to the right position on the screen and click. They know that the bigger the screen, the further the you have to move the mouse and the longer it takes to click.
Learning just a few simple keyboard shortcuts can really speed things up. Here are three shortcuts you can use with Evernote and one that works everywhere.
1: Tab Switch between Applications
The first shortcut is nothing to do with Evernote; it’s something built into Macs, Windows and most Linux desktops
Just suppose you’re surfing the web with your favourite browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge) and you want to switch to Evernote to check something.
Don’t reach for the mouse. Hold the Alt key on Windows or the Command (⌘) key on Apple and then press the tab key.
As you press tab you’ll see your current open apps appear on the screen.
Repeatedly press tab until you have selected the app you want to switch to, and then let go.
Tab switching is clever. The apps rearrange themselves every time you tab switch so that the app you last used is only ever one tab away. Try it.
Once you’ve got the hang of this you’ll wonder why you ever used the mouse.
2: Finding a Note in Evernote
You have two choices here:
Either jump to the search bar using Ctrl Command (⌃⌘) E on Mac or Win Shift F on Windows
Or press Command (⌘) J on Mac or Ctrl Q on Windows to open the switcher.
The search bar remembers things like which notebook you’re in, the switcher does a fresh Evernote wide search with suggestions
Which is better? Why not try them both out and see which one you like?
If you want a new note: hit Command (⌘) N on Mac or Ctrl N on Windows
3: Finding something within a Note
Now that you’ve found your note, try and find a particular word within it.
First you have to jump to the note editor. Hit tab repeatedly to get to it and then press enter. (It has to be said, Evernote, you could come up with a better way)
After that it’s just Command (⌘) F on a Mac or Ctrl F on Windows to bring up the Find in Note dialog
4: A Bonus Shortcut
The previous shortcuts help you work in Evernote. But if all you want to do is jot down a quick note there is an even faster way: the helper.
The helper is one of the most underutilised features of the Evernote desktop
Ctrl Cmd (⌃⌘) N on a Mac or Ctrl Alt H on Windows to bring it up. You can add a quick note here. You can even screenshot straight into Evernote
Test Yourself
Practicing the above shortcuts will help to get them into your muscle memory
Follow this link to see a copy of this page as a note. Save it Evernote.
Now, starting in another application see if you can find this elephant without using the mouse
A big part of writing is putting the notes I’ve made into some sort of order. I spend a lot of time joining notes together to make scenes and then rearranging those scenes. Scrivener is good at the rearranging part (I’ve written about this here.) Where Scrivener falls down is the flexibility of search. Emacs allows me to home in on a scene, an idea or a sentence almost instantly.
I copied some of my writing process from Scrivener’s model, even going as far as writing a simple Emacs Scrivener mode. Doom Emacs has rendered that unnecessary. Tools like ripgrep and consult make it far quicker to find what I’m looking for. If you’re unfamliar with the following commands, try them out. You’ll be pleased that you did.
One last thing. Doom Emacs calls different commands depending on which completion engine you’re using. This means the search syntax may vary. I use the default (vertico at the time of writing) which means that searching for apples oranges will return lines containing apples and oranges. In other words: when searching, type one word for an initial selection, then a second to narrow it down.
10.0.1 Searching in Projects
SPC SPC find file in project
SPC s p search project for text
SPC s P search another project for text
SPC s d search files in directory for text
10.0.2 Searching in Buffers
SPC s s helper function search for text in current buffer. Matches are displayed in another window.
SPC s j helper function that goes to entry in evil’s jump list
SPC m . Jump to org heading (uses consult-org-heading)
And don’t forget
C-c C-j org-goto
10.0.3 Useful Tips
SPC s o Search online. t will search online dictionary, T thesaurus
Find an unmatched quote using this regex ^[^"]*"[^"]*$
10.0.4 M-x consult-ripgrep
For a more flexible search try consult-ripgrep. It’s worth reading the documentation, but here’s a taste:
#alpha beta Search for alpha and beta in any order.
#alpha.*beta Search for alpha before beta.
#\(alpha\|beta\) Search for alpha or beta (Note Emacs syntax!)
#word -- -C3 Search for word, include 3 lines as context
#first#second Search for first, quick filter for second.
For many people, going to College means freedom. Freedom to try new things, to do what you like, when you like.
Well, not quite.
You’re still going to have lectures and tutorials to attend (that’s why you’re going, remember?) You want to make sure that you know what you’re doing every day, so that you can really enjoy your free time without worrying that you’re behind on an assignment.
That’s where Evernote can help you.
Evernote Home gives you your day on a page. Front and center should be your calendar. Your calendar will tell you where you need to be and when. Lectures, tutorials, practicals…
Setting up a calendar with all those details can be tedious. The good news is that 99% of the time your college will have your timetable already prepared and will share it with you via Google Calendar or Outlook.
You can view that calendar on your home page on Evernote. Here’s how you can add a Google Calendar. Evernote doesn’t support Outlook Calendar integration yet, but you can subscribe to your Outlook Calendar from your Gmail account. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how.
Add your college calendar and when you open up Evernote in the morning you’ll have your day on a page before you.
But there’s more.
Searching is easy on Evernote, but why search when you can have the right notes appear at the right time?
Here’s a tip: link your study notes to your individual events.
Just suppose you’ve created a note with the materials you need for tomorrow’s 9am tutorial. Link that note to the tutorial on the calendar on your Home Page. Here’s how to add link notes to calendar events. Now the note will be there, just when you need it.
You can even get Evernote to remind you to open the notes as the lecture begins. Just go to Calendar settings (click the dots on the top right of the calendar widget).
Tony Ballantyne 