My Thoughts on Paper Index Cards

I've been using paper index cards that I've been organizing in alphabetical order to keep track of my notebooks. I like to write thoughts on various things in there, like OpenGL, exercising, and project ideas. I'd rather have one notebook to keep them in, rather than multiple. I don't want to have a dedicated notebook on exercising if I don't update it regularly. That'd be a waste of a notebook, in my opinion. And also, when I have a new thought that usually takes less than a page, I'd rather have a single notebook to write it down in rather than figure out which of multiple notebooks to put it in.

With that, I consider these notebooks more of "thought streams", where I write whatever comes to mind. And once in a while, I update the gdrive link to pictures of my notes. I started it back when I started this blog. I want to share my notes, and it's also easier for me to view them digitally instead of bringing all my notebooks around. I talk more about it in my first post on this blog.

Having alphabetical index cards has allowed me to easily find various entries. It's also easy to update. I just write an entry, and I can sort it into my set of cards quickly. However, I feel like I now want to use a digital form of indexing, with a txt file. I'd like to use the pictures I took of my notebooks more. I started out with paper index cards because I wasn't sure I was going to commit to indexing like this, but I've been doing it for a while now (I think around the beginning of my last university quarter). So I'm really comfortable with this, and I like it a lot. I now want to make it digital.

As I plan to use txt files now, I still want to make a post about this. I thought it was really cool to do this, and I don't think I'll rid of paper index cards totally. I'm considering making sets of cards for separate notebooks, instead of one giant alphabetical stack, like I have right now. Anyways, I'll talk about what I've done first, and then my thoughts on it.

About the Cards

Back at home for university winter breaks, I put my cards in an old pencil box. I used a rubber duck to prop the cards up.

With the cards propped up, it's easy for me to fan through my cards. The pencil box is from 5th grade, looking at the stick on the top of the box. "Mrs. Wong, Room 33". Dad was using it to store spare parts. I found it, and got his permission to use it.

I asked my parents to get the rubber duck back in my freshman university year. As my home is relatively near, they brought it to me one weekend when they visited me. I thought I'd get it because of the term "Rubber duck debugging". I've never done it actually, though I just thought it be nice to have one since I do programming a lot.

Just side stories I wanted to put here.

I use the rubber bands to wrap the cards up when I want to put them in my backpack and take them somewhere. That other grid paper piece isn't relevant. It was just a list of things I wanted to buy.

I organized cards in alphabetical order. started with actual index cards, but then I started using spare paper that I could find. Cardboard, grid paper, scratch, paper from mail. I was more interested in what I wrote on the paper cards, rather than how they looked. Plus, I thought it was a useful recycling idea.

Some of my entries are below:

While I don't like having separate notebooks for thoughts like these, I do categorize my cards if I need to. I write my thoughts about life in small, handheld notebooks that you can hold with one hand. Like memo pads. I put them in a "Life Notes" section. I write other thoughts in larger notebooks. The 10.5" x 8" kinds. I just call them "Practical Notes". For university, I've found that I like making index cards for class notes too. I made a "Class Notes" section for those. And I have a separate section for each of the 3 classes I took last quarter.

I added a photo below showing all the sections I made. I used paper and tape and attached tags to cards of the same size as those I write my entries in. So the tagged cards fit in nicely, and the tags still stick out.

In the entries themselves: I write three things:
  1. The name of the entry
  2. Which notebook the entry is from
  3. What specific page the entry is in

I don't think the date is important. The content itself is more important. So that's why I don't write dates. (And ya, I am a little lazy there too haha. I admit it's only a few numbers and slashes more. But it's what I'm comfortable with.)

I've varied in how I number my pages. I tried different ideas for them. In the "Memory: Draft rewriting in English class" one, I wrote "6.10" for a page number. It's an idea I tried, having major sections and minor sections. I initially wrote only the major section numbers, then wrote the minor section numbers in when I found I was making cards for that major section. I may talk about it more in a separate post. Now, I'm just numbering my pages with regular numbers. But I still enjoyed trying out a different numbering idea.

As I ended up having a lot of notes, I used multiple notebooks. Having a page number wasn't specific enough then, so I labeled my cards with the name of a specific notebook it was in. Like for the memory card, I labeled "GB110217" for the notebook name. I had that mean "Green notebook that I started on 11/02/17". It's my own notation. I'd rather write something more shorthand like that since it's easier for me.

For the "Life Notes" and "Practical Notes" sections of index cards, I added separate cards at the beginning, each explaining a shorthand name I used. For the "Class Notes" section, I just wrote entries on the section cards themselves, because I wasn't intending to use so many notebooks for one university quarter class. 

And that's the general outline of the card system I made for myself.

Thoughts

I'll be trying to use a digital listing with txt files now. Still, looking at it now, I like the alphabetical index-card idea I formed over last university quarter. I'll try matching its flexibility in the txt files.

Had computers not existed before, I think I'd be fine developing these cards more. I'd be considering that as my sets get bigger, I'd then either move cards into other sets. Or I'd manually copy them. I'd probably ask someone else to do it and pay them for it with spare money I had.

I'll still probably use paper index cards when I'm using a notebook I haven't archived yet (taking pictures of it and replacing it when it got full). I still think they can be handy as a sort of "offline copy" that I can carry with a paper notebook. Like, maybe I just want to look at a specific notebook that I take when I carry my backpack around.

In that case, I'd make separate sets of cards for separate notebooks then, instead of focus on combining them into more general sections like "Practical Notes" or "Life Notes". I'd still include the name of the notebooks in my cards in the event that I do want to combine my cards altogether, or to use if I accidentally mix cards up.

As I try out using txt files now, I'm just "starting fresh". I won't try to manually copy every paper card I currently have now. The pages definitely to match up with the image filenames my camera gave my pictures when I digitized my notebooks. And I haven't fully numbered all the pages in certain notebooks either (this is part of what I may talk about in that separate post I was writing thoughts about earlier). But I won't throw my current set away. I'll keep it for memorabilia.

And that's all. I noticed with more posts like these, I've been making more of an outline for myself before writing them. Didn't use to do that before, but never thought I needed to be that thorough back then. I guess with bigger hobby programming and writeups, I've gotten used to outlines. They're pretty helpful. Anyways, as it's the 31st, here's to the New Year and to striving to be different. : )