When younger, I was off hunting along a swamp, and came across those sets of little grass hillocks in a bog. They might keep your boots dry, if you could hop from one to the next. I tried for a while to be tricky and pick out a humpy path to cross more comfortably, but soon just decided it was far better just to slog straight through the water to get where needed. My micro-lesson to myself was that it’s often better to embrace a bit of physical discomfort in exchange for a better outcome.

Friendly Wisconsin Swamp (Photo: Joshua Mayer)

How are we wired?

This brings us to the topic of note taking, and from there to the utility of a laboratory notebook or journal not just for schoolwork but for research, field work, your personal projects, etc. It is common these days to see students that seem to be clicking away at a frenetic pace taking notes on laptops (or using Google Messages, who knows). They often seem lost if course notes are not provided to them on silver platter in an electronic format, PowerPoint or similar.

Professors and presenters fall victim to the same trap. It can be appealing to think that one is doing well to deliver a high volume of content, flicking through pages upon pages of presentation material. This is usually not effective. I’m certainly guilty of taking the high and dry route in many settings. It’s easy for the instructor, easy for the student, and more transferable to remote learning settings to just pour content on electronically. What’s the issue?

This isn’t just a Luddite longing to roll back the clock to the old days when notebooks were the default. Rather, there is science behind the fact that note-taking by hand is more effective. While I’ve never been asked this question, in theory it would seem students should be lobbying their instructors for lectures to be presented in a way that is more conducive to longhand note-taking, rather than passively accepting a PowerPoint blitz format.

Not sure of the reasons why longhand note-taking makes for more effective learning, but perhaps notebooks force receivers on a running basis to better interpret and economize their decisions on what they think is important/deserving to record. Then through the physical action of writing, somehow it engages more of the body and mind than simply typing. Writing longhand also provides a wider range of expression in your unique style: figures, charts, doodles, penmanship. It’s a more appealing product, and more enjoyable to review, even years afterward. Also is a more durable storage medium than your fuzzy thoughts.

Capture your Brilliance

Now we move from the classroom to the work environment. For researchers, it’s essential to cultivate your skills in keeping a laboratory notebook. You have a running start on this discipline if you are used to taking longhand notes in courses. A laboratory notebook is your repository for the sort of creative insights, analysis and other ideas that young twentysomething minds generate in prodigious quantities.

There is a definite parallel between a laboratory notebook one might keep for your work projects and journals you may keep for your personal projects. Writing down your ideas gives them permanence and validity. We all have had flashes of creativity from our subconscious at 2 AM that, if not written down, finds us scratching our rational heads at 9 AM trying to remember them. More often than not, these ideas are permanently lost.

Another reason that a hardcopy notebook/journal has more utility than a laptop is that a notebook can sit placidly at your bedside, waiting quietly for any inputs. Laptops sitting at a bedside are just stress-inducing horrorcubes that you know are filling up with work emails as you (try to) sleep.

A venue where notebooks have great value is in the field. We will talk about size later but having one that you can page through and jot down notes during a rainstorm when crouched under an awning next to a malfunctioning pump are useful. A few grease splatters, blood, or indecipherable scrawlings due to extreme cold add character. Sketches, checklists, operating data, diagnoses: fill it with whatever you think will help you interpret your challenges. Take photos of pages with your phone and send them back to the home office if you need help figuring something out.

Long-term, you will enjoy building an inventory of your physical notebooks and leafing through them to remind you of your contributions on projects. You may harvest ideas from them later for designs, papers, inventions, business ideas etc. that you did not have time to explore more thoroughly at the time. Be willing to add non-work related musings or landscape sketches to make them more entertaining to reread and provide some color.

Structure and Content

Each of us have favorite forms for our notebooks. One common denominator is that the pages should be sewn, not simply three-ring binder loose pages. Pick something with more permanence and resilience.

Size depends on the purpose. For a laboratory notebook or journal at your home, one prefers a larger size. More space to sketch, less area lost to borders. A bigger notebook invites more writing. An engineer or scientist might be partial to notebooks that are grid ruled, so you can sketch layouts a bit easier. An artistic type might prefer a tabula rasa.

Some options

For business meetings out of the office or field work a smaller one may be preferable. These ride more easily in a backpack and can be tucked into your pants at the small of your back when you are wandering around. You need both hands free to climb ladders or step around obstacles, and don’t want to be burdened by a bigger notebook (or heaven forbid, laptop). Something like the 24.7 x 19 cm one shown above is a convenient size.

For work, you might not opt for a very small size. These may need to be compact for fishing, canoeing, or backpacking journals, but engineering projects have a long life, and you will want more space and pages. Clients would be less impressed if you whip out a pint-sized sketch pad for notes on a multimillion dollar job.

A good resource with tips for notebook structure and organization can be found here.

Summary

It may seem old school, and opposed to the proliferation of electronic devices in the classroom, but students and young engineers should be encouraged to cultivate their skills in maintaining notebooks and journals. I’m not perfect at using them, but doing so has been shown to be more effective, is professional, and will give you pleasure long-term as the products of your career add up over time. There are many reasons why keeping journals can give a boost to your inner life that are not covered here, but there likely is a mutual benefit and correlation between your productivity in a work notebook and your satisfaction in keeping a personal journal.

Practice makes the master.