Are you using visual note taking (Sketchnoting) techniques?

Question

I wonder how much of the HN readers are using visual note taking. How did you start and what is the approach you took at the beginning and how has it evolved over time.Are you using analog or digital tools for it and generally speaking for what purpose you take the notes.I am more referring to something along the line of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchnoting

bjourne · Accepted Answer

I make graphs. For every fact I want to remember I draw a vertex whose label is the fact. Then if I realize that two facts are related I draw an edge adjoining their vertices. Sometimes I use different pen colors to categorize facts and sometimes I put annotations on the edges too. Roughly like a mind map except the graphs are cyclic and undirected and this makes a very big difference.

Terretta · Answer

Yes. Since early teens I frame notes in graph paper notebooks in a kind of information system geography. This is not the same as a mind-map which is just hierarchy (an outline recast as cartoon bubbles and lines).
When concepts lay out and interconnect like a periodic table of elements, symmetries, misalignments, or gaps suggest where you’re onto something, or perhaps the conception is mistaken, or more research is needed.
These can prove quite dense, a single well woven page can take 50 powerpoint slides to unpack and bullet or diagram more conventionally.
I use obsidian and similar markdown tools but the shape of a system or information is lost in most text tools. Excalidraw is useful, as is Kroki.io, for tying the two approaches together.
But mostly Apple Pencil and Goodnotes w/ graph paper.

luckman212 · Answer

I use Obsidian[0] with lots of nice markdown formatting and screenshots. Does that count?[0] https://obsidian.md

nivertech · Answer

Not sure what do you mean by "visual note taking". Maybe mind mapping?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_maphttps://www.mindmapping.com/

dominotw · Answer

I tried it for a while but was taking too much work. Perhaps I would've gotten better had i stick to it.

Are you using visual note taking (Sketchnoting) techniques?

I use Obsidian[0] with lots of nice markdown formatting and screenshots. Does that count?
[0] https://obsidian.md

Not sure what do you mean by "visual note taking". Maybe mind mapping?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
https://www.mindmapping.com/

I tried it for a while but was taking too much work. Perhaps I would've gotten better had i stick to it.