Intro 🌟

There are no boundaries to learning new skills for a Self-taught Individual and a Digital-Nomad!

In Modern-Era, some people are called "Self-Taught and Digital Nomads", Now you may think both of them are different but what I will be focusing on in this blog is the Art of Note-Taking that a Self-Taught and Digital Nomad has, With everyday new learnings and rapidly evolving tech industry, It is sometimes hard to keep so much of information in our minds and recall them at the moment when we need them.

I remember a quote by David Allen

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

While traveling the globe and working remotely and learning new tech stacks, Digital Nomads and Self-Taught Individuals are honing their Note-Taking skills to perfection because one thing that I noticed myself was that "It doesn't matter how you start, What matters is how you're better than yesterday!" and this boosted my Note-Taking skills because it's true that you have to start somewhere and keep pushing your boundaries and while doing so, documenting it is beneficial for the individual as well as for the person reading/knowing the experience of the individual.

In this blog post, I'll try to deliver the tools, techniques, and my Note-Taking experience as a Self-Taught individual.

So, Let's dive deep into this ocean of Note-Taking and Unlock the secrets behind the "Art of Note-Taking as a Self-Taught Individual and a Digital Nomad"

Two Major Note-Taking Methods 💻📒

Recently, I created a Poll asking folks about what they prefer, Traditional Pen and Paper for Note-Taking or Digital tools for Note-Taking?

After this Poll, Traditional Pen and Paper be like:

Digital Note-Taking 💻📱

In the Modern Era of Advanced Technology, The traditional way of Note-Taking has gone through an incredible transformation. As of now, digital note-taking is the best method for note-taking for some folks, because there is no need to worry about paper and pen, and just type the ideas out with some clicks.

Some tools help us in Organizing our learnings, knowledge, and ideas with just a few clicks, Our ideas are now in our Laptops, smartphones, and our tabs and we carry them with us wherever we go.

Such as Notion, Obsidian, Evernotes, and Notes app(on your device), and many such tools for Taking Notes Digitally.

Traditional Note-Taking 📒📝

The evergreen Traditional pen and paper are irreplaceable. The flow of thought is from the mind to the ink of the pen and then to the paper. The experience of thoughts/ideas while jotting down the points is just on another level. Also, No Digital Tool means fewer to no Distractions.

Traditional Pen and Paper have their features such as a connection between the mind and the paper making the ideas more concrete and strong, and the active feeling of doing a task.

Traditional Note-Taking feels calm, peaceful, and tranquil because we are not easily distracted by the notifications and messages that often occur while Digital Note-Taking.

It depends upon folks how they use these methods to their full potential and Unlock their Note-Taking Skills according to their preferences.

Why Should a Self-Taught and a Digital Nomad Care about Note-Taking? 🤔

Here's why:

• Ideas are stored safely - Your thoughts, learnings, and Ideas are stored at the place of your preference and you can access it anytime you want.

• Organization - The major point here is Organization because without the proper organization of ideas, content, and learnings everything will mix up.

• Revision - Suppose, you have learned a topic and not made notes, what will happen? Of course, You will forget the things that you've learned as time passes. So it's good to take notes for revision purposes also.

• Documenting your learnings - While documenting your learnings you can write down the issues you've faced recently and how you overcame them which would be beneficial for you and you can also tell someone else who is facing the issue which you've faced already that "I had the same issue and here is the solution".

• Achieving - Writing down Important Tasks to do, Projects to finish, and goals to achieve are very very important for an Individual and thus Note-Taking helps us in accomplishing these.

My Experience with both of these methods 📈

Here is the breakdown of my current note-taking flow/procedure

I categorize the tasks into three types:

1. Quick reminder for doing a task - Whenever I have to do something important but, some other task came up with much more priority then, I have to finish that one first and get back to the previous one, and for that, I write down the tasks that I have to do.

2. Long-Term Learnings - Here I mean the learnings that will build a foundation for my development journey or my knowledge of a topic in general. Like, While learning DSA I made handwritten notes, which leveled up my learning a lot.

3. Writing down important notes on any topic that I am learning - What I mean by this is that, When I was learning Linux then, I started noting down the best practices or the most commonly used and basic commands that I will be using frequently whenever I use the Command-Line.

Tools I use for Digital Note-Taking 📱💻

• Notion

  For taking notes while learning some technology - So, Not all the time I use traditional pen and paper for learning new tech stacks because sometimes you have to be fast, and efficient in grasping knowledge. Like, The Important points that I have to know about the tech which I'm learning and for that purpose, Notion is best for me.

• Obsidian

  For organizing my workflow - whenever I have some project idea, I just write it down and expand it more as per my needs like writing down the features for my project and dedicating the time slots in which I will be working on this project, etc.

• Google Keep

  This was my most commonly used Notes app when I didn't know much about the Tools for Note-Taking digitally and I remember that I still have notes written down from a Git and GitHub tutorial that I was learning at that time.

So, In conclusion, I know more Tools that I can use but I prefer keeping all the learning stuff in one place and that is Notion (rather than keeping them in different tools) and Obsidian for organizing my workflow, projects, and upcoming content ideas.

Now that you know about my workflow while Taking-Notes, You should feel free to write about your experience with Note-Taking, and don't hesitate to share your experiences even if you are a beginner.

Let's help each other level up! 🚀

Since I have gone through all the Tools that I use to make my workflow and learnings as a Self-Taught Individual more efficient and effective, I have a bonus tool for you that I use daily that keeps track of all the work I have to do during the day. And its name is Todoist.

• Todoist

  

  Here, with this tool, You can add the tasks that you have to do during the day or you can even schedule your tasks based on your preferences and the days, that on which day you want which task to be done.

  Btw, writing a blog was my last work to do on my Todoist, and here's what I got after completing all of the tasks.

Conclusion 💭

In Conclusion, We got to know about the different Note-Taking methods in depth, If you are a Self-Taught Individual or a Digital Nomad then Why you Should Care about Note-Taking, I shared my experiences with Note-Taking as a Self-Taught Individual and the tools I use for Taking Notes Digitally.

If you learned something from this blog post then consider following me on Hashnode because I write blog posts weekly about my learning and Experiences.

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Thanks :)