In my workflow, Paper has a filter function: For someone with a lousy handwriting like me, jotting something down means extra effort. This usually has the effect of highlighting everything well-written, or at least I expect the things in my moleskine to be more important, if I can decipher them. I enjoy this ‘calligraphic’ approach to notetaking: It feels like painting; concentrating on the flow of ink and the nice shape of the letters seems to improve the quality of ideas somehow.

In my research journal (moleskine; the one that does not fit into my butt pocket), filtering and tagging is even more important than with digital files. I employ the “Bruce Chatwin method”: numbering all the pages first, later creating an “index” of valuable / interesting content at the end of the notebook.

The same method is a very useful strategy for reading books: After marking all of the passages I like or find interesting, I flip through the book again after I finished reading it, creating another personal “index” at the last page.

Markus