My Journal, My Life

So, here I am writing my post at the last minute. Literally, the last minute. In fact, the next talk starts in 55min.

After Matt's talk, I started thinking about how journals (or design notebooks) fit into my life and how I had never really noticed that before. I still have my journals from 1st grade, when I was learning how to write and we had to write one sentence and draw a picture every day. It was pretty intense - after we wrote our sentence we had to go show it to our teacher who would correct our spelling and grammar.

In middle school, I carried a big purse and always had a notebook inside. I would write lists of things to do, angsty poetry, and notes about things I needed to remember. I made a lot of big plans in those notebooks. I had a 30min bus ride to and from school so I had plenty of time to record my thoughts and feelings inside its spiral bound pages.

As I got into high school (and started driving myself to school), notebooks became less of a driving force in my life. I would take notebooks on trips to write down my memories or make lists. I'm famous for making lists. At least 50% of my notebooks are just lists. Lists about what I wanted to own in my house someday. Lists of places I wanted to visit. Lists of websites I was going to create. Lists of books I wanted to read. So much of my notebook space is/was about things I want to do and may or may not ever do. I suppose that's still a flaw of mine - I always enjoy planning much more than the follow through. Gradually, I transitioned from notebooks to blogs. Sometimes I would still write in my notebook, but only so that I would remember what to write in my blog later. My friends and I got really into it - we all read each other's blogs religiously. Of course, the downside was when you had to change your URL because someone you didn't like had started reading your blog. Somehow, that didn't seem like a reason to stop.

Having mostly transitioned to electronic forms of recording my plans/lists, I still keep a couple notebooks on hand, but they have very distinct purposes. I mostly use the purple one for trips - so far I've written about 2 pages in it. The brown one is actually a photo album I use for ticket stubs - a memory of the music/theater/art productions I have attended. I love flipping through it for random memories like the Philly Folk Festival, the Sex Worker's Art Show, and my name-tag from Olin's Candidate's Weekend. I like that it's visual. My last notebook, and most private, is the pink one. I actually made that notebook myself in a high school art class called "Textiles". In that notebook, I hide all of my secret feelings and romantic woes. That's the notebook where I dump out everything so I can get over my ex-girlfriend. The notebook where I convince myself that everything's going to be okay - I'm better off single. I guess in many ways, it's the most important one.

It's interesting to think about how the role of notebooks in my life has transitioned. I'm interested in seeing how my design notebook from this independent study evolves.

I may add more to this later, but this is a good start.

Designing a Low-Definition Digital Ideation Platform

For my Everyday Ideation deliverable, I wrote up some thoughts that I posted earlier into a somewhat coherent essay. It's not quite the standard deliverable I had foreseen myself making, but it's too interesting to pass up.

It can be found here.

Here's the 5-second version:
-the way that computers naturally display and store information is fundamentally different from the way notes and sketches naturally display and store information
-the way in which we use our computers prohibits us from thinking in "design mode" as we would while using a notebook
-here are a few starter ideas for designing a program that would encourage on-the-fly "design thinking"

Comments welcome!

Soley Design? I Think Not!

Intro to the Notebook!
Matt Jadud helped us kick off the Vital Ideation course last week with an introduction to design notebooks. What a great way to start the class! We got to examine many aspects of design simply by inspecting the work that Matt has done over previous years. And not only were we introduced to the many design aspects he implements, but were told to adopt a style that works for you and to stick to it. "Remember your design notebook is written for you in the future, not for anyone else." Design notebooks do not have to be always neat and perfect but can be sloppy (okay maybe only a little) and contain confusions or maybe even entirely unrelated things, but as long as it aids in your design process than the notebook is fulfilling its purpose. With my notebook I plan to have designs, but also lots of doodles, ideas, random writing, notes from discussions, flowcharts, and anything else that will get my ideas out of me and onto its pages. Here's some pictures of what it is like...

Here's a doodle.And the layout of one of our meetings. Sometimes having location and quotes help me remember the meeting better.
And sometimes my notebook gets really messy. But that's okay because it's only for me (just in the future).

Design Dilemma!
Immediately after Matt's talk I started writing down notes, scribbling, drawing...just getting my ideas onto paper. But slowly, keeping a design notebook started to slip off of my priority list. Why did this happen? Matt had explained in his talk that there was more to design than notebooks, more than just ideas on paper--it was about scheduling, staying organized, and having low stress so that the ideas flow more easily, and it was on these points that I was failing. Lately I have way too over committed with classes, clubs, and activities and this has lead to an tremendous increase in my stress level. So whenever I sat down to try to think about design, my mind was in 1000 other places--when is my next appointment? have i finished all of my homework? what happens if the world blows up?. It is really hard to think of anything to design when your mind is not remotely focused. Matt really emphasized this in his talk, but I didn't believe him until I experienced it first hand! To help cope with this design difficulty, I have been trying to schedule in time just for design and though it has been hard, I really like having a time devoted solely to design and I want to do it more often! When something is important to you, you find time to do it no matter how busy you are because you can make it a priority. This is what I am doing with this course and with designing in general.

The World in Color

In his presentation last week, Matt made a point about the use of color in notes. In Software Design last semester, he also made a point to use different chalk colors to more effectively illustrate points. I recall being frustrated at how poorly these multi-color diagrams translated into my notebook in boring old black. Somehow, the idea of using more than one color to copy down a picture containing more than one color never struck me.

Since last week, I have been using two or three different colors of pens when taking notes. I find it tremendously useful to be able to draw a graph's axes in one color, the plot of a function or two, and comment on various aspects within the graph without having to worry about losing clarity to "too much black ink." Small tangential notes, or comments on math steps are perfect to do in another color. They don't interfere with the flow of the notes, but add additional information.

This combines with another observation about note-taking that I made recently. For a long while, I unconsciously took notes as densely as possible. I tried to write on every line and only really skipped lines between sections. This meant that all of the information I might need was all in one place, but it made it veryr difficult to access again later. Frequently I will remember where on a page I wrote something, but not on which page, and will have to hunt around my dense notes to find the bit of information I am looking for.

What I am doing now is leaving much more white space and intentionally making my notes more logically organized on the page. I'd rather that I spread things out in a way that makes sense to me and is easy to go back to later and reference. This seems somewhat obvious, but it still feels weird to have some pages in my notebook that contain only a few individual pieces of information. However, they contain the information in a way that is very easy for me go back to and quickly understand, rather than being mushed up with everything else.

Rather than use flat words to illustrate how I've changed my note-taking style to use color and organization, it seems like pictures might be a better option. (copy color diagram, use color. easier to understand, spread notes out. show concept, use photos. Maybe I'm improving?)

An Illustration

Here I was able to plot several difference graphs without getting them mixed up, as well as include comments without "ink overload"

Again, I was able to write something and mark it up with comments without interfering with the readability or flow of the "non-comment" notes.

I drew the base circuit in one color, comments in another color, and a formula for impedence in another.

For me, this is a pretty low note content for a page. I normally draw much smaller graphs and don't spread things out this much, but by arranging my notes and using color I am able to more easily understand them, which is good, because they are my notes.

A Wrap
I am a big fan of this new style of note-taking I am using. I suspect I will get better at it, since I've only even started to think hard about how I organize notes a week ago. Note-taking had become so second nature that I just did it on autopilot. This new "structure and semantics" thing is such a great idea.

Why didn't they teach me this in 6th grade study skills?

P.S. - I'm probably going to keep posting all of my deliverable photos into my Vital Ideation Flickr Pool, because it's rather easy to do.

Design Notebooks - Merging Design and Organization

After hearing Matt's talk, I have started to give a lot more thought into how it is that I organize my life and free my head so that I have room to design.

It was interesting for me to look deeply at how I used my notebooks and how I organized my tasks.

I'll start with how I organize things.

I try to make list and cross things off my lists. These lists include post-its stuck to my desk or a page torn out of a notebook. I also use the tasks on Outlook which helps me to schedule my time and make sure I allot time for everything to get done. Having a paper list on my desk saves me from taking the time to turn on my computer, check my calendar, check facebook, check my e-mail and otherwise waste lots of time.

The organization of my school notebooks is a new thing for me. In ICB I had the mid-semester notebook change problem which is never good. I went to only putting notes in my notebooks and not homework. The problem with that is that sometimes your homework is better notes than your notes are. I struggled off and on with how to structure things and i came up with this solution:


I staple lab handouts and homework assignments on the back side of the pages. When I get a homework assignment or a lab back, I stick that in too. That way, all of my notes are on the front sides, and the completed, neat versions of my homework are on the back sides of the page. Occasionally I will do scratchwork on the problem set or lab handout. It the scratchwork doesn't quite fit on the page, I just cut out a tab and fold it in. This keeps everything neat and together. One problem I foresee with this system is the fattiness factor. These notebooks are going to be HUGE once the semester is over. I hope it will be worth the obnoxiously huge notebook to have everything together and organized.

The design notebook I carry is a residual from Design Nature and POE. There are lots of calculations and sketches in it. I think the key facet of my design notebook is that there are pages of order and pages of disorder and that doesn't really matter. If it is something important, or something I have to scan and submit for an assignment, I make it neat. If not, who cares. Like Matt said, I am writing this to my future self not to anyone else.

I think my favorite part of this notebook is the Baxtor Beaver costume sketches!






Well, I think that is all I have to say on the topic of notebooks both organization and design. I think the key lesson is to find a system that works for you and to stick with it. Carrying around a notebook and not writing anything in it is a waste. I try not to worry about keeping things neat when I know I will never really look at them again but I try to maintain general order when my future self will want some reference material. It may not be the best system but it works for me.

Matt Jadud's talk today went pretty well. He was recommended to us by our course adviser, and so setting up the intro talk was actually somewhat last minute. Fortunately, Matt's pretty chill, and even though we started late, our video camera broke and the audio is terrible, things were fine.

Matt gave a hilarious introduction to design by narrating a brief history that covered everything from the garden of Eden to the invention of the space shuttle by da Vinci. He spoke extensively about his notebooks from grad school and how he used them, which was the best part of the presentation, in my opinion.

I have some new thoughts about the importance of notebooks over computers.

-roughness
-quickness
-drawing

• Notebooks have a certain roughness that computers lack. This is actually fairly closely related to quickness, but I'll try to distinguish between them. When I draw or write on a notebook, my lines aren't perfectly straight, and my letters aren't perfectly formed. To be honest, when writing quickly, I use a disgusting half-cursive-half-print style that's almost impossible for anyone but me to read. But this roughness is not only unique, it is /essential/ to the character of the notebook. When I write "gvt" on a page, it almost unambiguously means "government" to me-- the information is conveyed quickly and efficiently. But when I type "gvt", the computer underlines it jagged and bright-red (and has even on the blogger text editor, though I think that might actually be a Firefox feature) and if I run a spell check it won't care for the abbreviation unless I add it to the dictionary and so on! The computer places almost no value on roughness-- its strengths are orderly.
• Notebooks have a quickness about them that is hard to imitate in computers. Content can start being created anywhere on the page, and in seconds a page can be filled with an information structure. In the part on roughness, I mentioned that my lines aren't straight, and my letters aren't perfectly formed. In fact, if the lines I drew were straight on my page, they would take infinitely longer to form, and if my handwriting was a font, I would still be tracing out my first letters. Likewise, if my computer worried about storing every odd line, letter, doodle and so forth I've written as a set of extremely detailed vector graphics, it would be a tremendous waste! They are two completely different models for the display of information, and I bet a lot of great ideas are still waiting to be discovered regarding transfer between them.
• The third quality I mentioned was drawings. It's darn near impossible to draw with the mouse, and it's darn near impossible /not/ to with a pen. Sound good? Good.

Alright, I should probably get back to some other work. Also, if you're still reading this and in VI, don't feel compelled to write another post about Matt's lecture (it's not a course requirement), though by all means go ahead if you want to add something. Alright, I'm out.

Design Notebooks

Today, Matt Jadud spoke about Design Notebooks. He shared with us some highlights from his design notebooks from the last several years and explained the different ways he uses them. We learned about different ways to organize our thoughts, but the primary point was that everyone thinks and learns in different ways and the key is to customize your notebook for yourself. Order vs. chaos, sketches vs. outlines, use of color and style are all techniques that work better for some people than others.

As everyone taking Vital Ideation is carrying a design notebook for the course, Matt's talk will prove to be very helpful! The video camera we were going to use to record the talk broke, but an audio recording of this talk will be posted.