![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/notebooks.jpg\" "\\"notebooks\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI use three types of notebooks.<\/p>\n
The first and most used is the Steno Pad – those tan, spiral-bound things on the right. I keep one on my desk at work. I jot short notes of what I do during each day. I get three days per page, and the standard-size Steno Pad lasts one year. I have kept a Steno Pad on my desk since June of 1984. Ask me what I did on any day since then.<\/p>\n
The second notebook is the Computation Notebook. That is the large brown thing in the left center of the photo. I use the National Computation Notebook model 43-648 (Google “Computation Notebook 43-648” to find them). I have used these since 1990. I think the National company has been bought and sold several times since 1990, but the notebooks are still available.<\/p>\n
I have two uses of the Computation Notebook. (1) My personal work log at home. I have the dates and amount of time I spent writing 100+ articles and four books. (2) A record of meetings at my day job.<\/p>\n
The third notebook is my personal journal. That is the pile of brown and then black notebooks stacked in the center of the photo. I started writing a journal in December of 2000 (see my blog post on journals<\/a>). I started with a brown hardback book, but the company quit making those, so I switched to the Moleskine<\/a> black hardback book. I find the hardback book works much better in my lap than the softback book.<\/p>\n I find one indisputable advantage to paper and pencil notebooks: they are all backwards compatible. I can still read my notes from 1984. I cannot read my 5 1\/4″ CP\/M floppy disks from that date. Several people I know at work keep their notes on the office computer system. They have lost years of notes due to technology changes.<\/p>\n