# Notes about organizing Notebooks (First published in [Obsidian Forum](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/what-do-you-use-a-notebook-for/51137/14?u=hitshrink), written on 20230102, in a forum topic title **What do you use a notebook for?**.) I use a physical notebook to keep various notes -- work, personal, todo's, lists, random bits, scratch pad, etc) -- as well as using Obsidian, often in the form of a Daily note that serves as an inbox... though, not so much daily. I also create topic or source notes in ZK fashion ( [[20230102.1350 Obsidian forum post about how notebooks are used]] ). While my *intent* is to transcribe my paper notes into .md notes, reality is this happens sporadically, in waves or as needed. My desire to be disciplined and to type in notes each day does not usually match my actual behavior, but I do not beat myself up about it. So, I have two parallel systems -- paper and digital -- that I gradually integrate. Here is the trick though... 1. I only use one notebook at a time 2. Each notebook is labeled with a 4-character code... `DDYY`. `DD`=descriptor; `YY`=year ... the current one is LT22. The first 2 alpha characters describe the book (this one is a Leuchtturm, so LT), each book being unique. The last 2 digits are always the year I started that notebook (2022 in this instance). 3. Each page is dated (or inferred from the prior page); some pages may have entries from several dates. 4. Each page has a number (PPP), starting with the inside front cover is 0. The current notebook comes with numbered pages, but they usually do not; for those, I put the page number in the top right of each right-sided page (the odd ones) leaving the even ones blank to ease this chore. > **Thus, each page can be uniquely referred to as: DDYY-PPP. > Yesterday's page is LT22-157.** 5. I am ~~pretty good~~ so-so at consistently creating an index (TOC) at the front of the book (first few pages) describing what is on each page. I always create an .md file for each notebook (eg, LT22.md) containing some **metadata about the notebook:** >- start/end dates >- physical description >- number of pages >- main tags for that timeframe >- a key to indicate how much has been transcribed into digital) 6. This method of keeping the TOC for each notebook in a file [[LT22]] helps me find stuff later. ![[notebook organization example.png]] Over time, I intend to transcribe each page to a file, eg, [[20221112 LT22-058]]. --- This system has evolved over time, and this is what it is today, sort of zettelkasten-like. My tools have evolved from Notational Velocity >> nvAlt >> nvUltra >> Obsidian, about ~~4000~~ 6600 notes (Nov '23). The combination of digital and paper is definitely my second brain, both for knowledge management, task management, and content creation.