A Good Notebook

Recently I was cleaning out my office and found a bunch of notebooks from college. In the engineering program, each class has you purchase a notebook with graph paper sewn in. Each page is supposed to be numbered. If you wanted to spend a bit of money, you could buy the notebooks with the numbers already printed at the top of each page. I didn't mind writing the numbers myself and saved some cash.

In school, the professors wanted you to keep detailed notes of everything you did. We were supposed to write everything down and part of the class grade was based on your notebook. If you tried an experiment and it didn't work, make a note of it and try again. If things did work the first time then there was a lot less writing. When I was done with school, I continued keeping notebooks. It was, and still is, a great way to keep track of information.

While cleaning out my basement, I also found a bunch of 3-ring binders from school. I immediately threw out the insides and put the binder in my "for the kids" pile. Sometimes I will need a binder and pull from the pile as well.

When I started my latest project, I decided to use on of the 3-ring binders instead of a notebook. I am such a perfectionist that I have grown tired of printing out important e-mails, trimming the margins in the paper cutter, and gluing them into my notebook. I thought it would be much easier to print out the e-mail, 3-hole punch it, and put it in my binder. It turns out, I am saving an incredible amount of time. The downside is that I might be putting too much information in the notebook now.

Today my notebook has helped me tremendously and here is why. If you have a problem once, it is important to write down the steps used to help solve it. Chances are that you will have the problem again and don't want to recreate the solution. Then keep your notebook by the computer so you don't have to go looking for it. A problem I had solved earlier came up again today. All I had to do was look at my notes and I had the solution in a matter of minutes.