It’s been a good week for reviewing the past, too. I’ve been going through a spreadsheet of my old posts, rating the posts on a scale of 1 to 5 so that I can pick out the memories that were the most significant for me. It would be interesting to see that on some kind of timeline, with maybe some ways to filter. We’ll see! I’ve also scanned in three of my old paper notebooks, and it’s fun flipping through my notes and lists. I’ve been thinking about getting the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T for a light-weight way to review and create sketches, blog, and read. The iPad may have a better app ecosystem, but I still like the way Android apps build on each other. The TF700T’s supposed to come out in June, so I’m looking forward to that.

I’ve been biking to work almost every day, and I like it. So far, the weather’s been mostly cooperative, although I’ve been caught out in the rain once. I enjoy seeing the landscape change as we move into summer – there are so many different kinds of green! Life is good.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Weekly review: Week ending May 25, 2012 (Sacha Chua's blog)

I happen to like cooking. I get intrinsic value from many of the activities that people typically outsource: cooking, gardening, writing blog posts, responding to e-mail, developing websites… I also don’t mind living a small-scale life, a life where there’s room to breathe. I don’t have to do it all or have it all.

What are my reasons for delegating, then?

I want to learn how to give instructions and let go of tasks, because the feeling that I need to do everything myself will be a bottleneck if I allow it to be.

I want to get things done better than I can do them myself, taking advantage of skills that take people years to develop and experiences that I will never have.

I want to work around the limits of my attention. Sometimes I shelve projects or procrastinate tasks. Paying someone to do things not only gets those things done, it also strengthens my own commitment to move things forward.

Part of this motivation to learn how to outsource things comes from more deliberate choices about what I want to focus on and more awareness of what tends to fall to the bottom of my to-do list. In my sketchbook, there’s a page divided in two: things to say yes to and things to say no to. For example, I accept that I’m not going to invest the time into drawing realistic figures or painting work as beautiful as the ones I see hanging in the art galleries (“no” pile), and I’m going to focus instead on simple, quick drawings that capture ideas (“yes” pile).

Deciding not to try to do it all – picking some things I’m going to focus on, at least for the next year – makes it easier to choose tasks to outsource. If I want something done but I’ve chosen not to budget the time to learn how to do it well, then the real question is whether I want it strongly enough to pay someone to do it this year or whether it’s something I can postpone until I reevaluate my learning priorities. Here are the reasons why I might delegate something:

• Time premium: Is there value to having it done earlier than I can make the time to do it or learn the skills I need in order to do it?
• Skills: Can other people do it much better than I can?
• Relative advantage: Can other people complete it in less time or for less cost than I might?
• Energy: Is this something that energizes other people much more than it energizes me?
• Interruption / task switching: Can delegating this free up my attention so that I can focus on larger chunks?
• Opportunity cost: Would I be able to earn more or enjoy a different activity much more if I spent time doing that instead of this?
• Documentation and repetition: Is this a repeatable process? Is it worth investing the time in documenting the process and debugging the instructions?
• Learning: What can I learn from delegating this?

Here’s a short list of activities I’ve been thinking of delegating:

• Reminders
• Appointments
• Data entry
  • Typing in text from scans (receipts, evaluations, business cards, etc.) or sketchnotes
  • Contact information
  • Comparison-shopping
  • Transforming text
• Web research
• Text formatting
• Transcription
• Data collection and analysis
• Proofreading and editing
• Illustration
• Graphic design
• Web development
  • Web design
  • Turning sketches into mockups or HTML/CSS templates
  • HTML5/Javascript development
  • Rails development
• Setting up get-togethers with friends

I’m also interested in local assistance for:

• Occasional batch cooking, so we can try different recipes and enjoy more variety
• Cleaning
• Other chores and errands

I’ll gradually work up to delegating different activities. Gotta work on my comfort level and ability to give instructions, after all! =)

Read the original or check out the comments on: A perspective on outsourcing (Sacha Chua's blog)

Two weeks ago, I posted a job on oDesk, where I’ve hired virtual assistants before. I like oDesk because you can find a lot of potential contractors there and you can monitor people’s work. This was my job post:

Typing text from images (scanned receipts, etc.), occasional web research

Looking for someone who can type in text from scanned receipts and other images into a spreadsheet. Should be proficient in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Should have a Dropbox account and be comfortable using it. To show your attention to detail and give me a basis for comparison, please start your reply with your approximate WPM. Around 1-2 hours a week, no urgent requests so you can fit this around your other contracts.

By afternoon, 150+ people had applied. I narrowed it down to a shortlist of fifteen applicants based on whether they followed my application instructions, avoided gendered assumptions (so many people start their applications with “Dear Sir”; yes, I have an ambiguous nickname, but still!), and had competitive rates and typing speeds. I interviewed a few by e-mail, then hired a couple of assistants for a short trial.

The task I assigned to the first person was that of typing in line items from the grocery receipts that I scanned. I shared the folder of scanned receipts using Dropbox, and I created a sample spreadsheet with a few items. He asked a question to clarify what to do, and I answered it before going to bed. By the time I woke up, he had completed the spreadsheet and moved the receipts to the “done” folder. Total time for eleven receipts: 0:50, or roughly $0.70 of work. By golly. (I gave him a $2 bonus for good work and to start the relationship off well.) I added another eleven receipts, and he completed those in 0:50 too.

Here’s the spreadsheet. See the INSTRUCTIONS tab for details. I filled in the Lookup table afterwards so that I could easily categorize the results.

There are some web and smartphone apps that digitize receipts, like Shoeboxed or Lemon. The premium plan of Lemon can extract the item-level details, but the FAQ / help forum says that item-level export is still in the works. I haven’t found anything that has great item-level export. Having someone fill in a spreadsheet handles all the edge cases, like crumpled receipts or handwritten notes.

I’ll share more delegation experiences as I experiment!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Starting up my delegation experiments again: data entry from receipts (Sacha Chua's blog)

The headset turned out to be pretty handy for other things as well. Bluetooth support meant that I could pair the headset with my phone. I started listening to classical music when working on my computer. I listened to podcasts while I tidied up the kitchen, watered the garden, or went for a long walk.

The headset charges using a micro-USB cable, and can be charged while in use. This is great, because I always forgot to charge my previous headset in time for me to use it. We use micro-USBs for so many other devices, so we always have cables handy. The downside? Between listening to music over Bluetooth and using my phone’s GPS to track exercise, I need to remember to charge my phone at every opportunity I get.

The Logitech H800 headset comes with a mini receiver that’s small enough to stay plugged into a laptop all the time. Unfortunately, it’s not a Logitech unifying receiver. Now I have two of those slim-profile Logitech receivers plugged into my laptop (mouse and headset). That leaves one USB port for flash drives, charging, and other things I want to plug in. I haven’t gotten into the habit of carrying around a powered USB hub, but I’m close to it!

Decision: Better than I expected, although FutureShop sold the headset for quite a bit more than the Amazon US price. I picked it up at FutureShop because I wanted to test the fit before getting it, and it worked out fine.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Decision review: Logitech H800 wireless headset (Sacha Chua's blog)

This is part of my Visual Metaphors series. I’m drawing these to help expand my visual vocabulary for drawing sketchnotes. It’s a good way to exercise. Any suggestions?

Read the original or check out the comments on: Visual metaphors: Success (Sacha Chua's blog)

I’ve also added a gallery view here on sachachua.com. http://sachachua.com/blog/sketchnotes/ is a quick slideshow of sketchnotes, and you can click on the selectors near the top to jump to a sketch or stay on one. What do you think? Are the transitions too fast or too slow?

Read the original or check out the comments on: Added new gallery views so that you can review sketchnotes easily (Sacha Chua's blog)

Even if you don’t start with a clear question, sometimes tracking data helps you see patterns. When you collect data, then you can change something in your life and see if it has any effect.

Here are some ideas:

• Track the time you go to bed, the time you woke up, and whether you felt tired after waking up.
• Track how many glasses of water you drink a day.
• Track how many steps you take each day. A pedometer makes this easier.
• Track the groceries you buy in one month. How much do you spend on different categories?
• Track the clothes you wear. Do you have a handful of favourites? Are there clothes you never use?

Give it a try and see what you discover!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Getting Started with Quantified Self (Sacha Chua's blog)

I think about life a lot because:

• I want to make better decisions: Planning my life allows me to deliberately try things instead of being limited to chance or what other people want
• Looking back makes it easier to go forward: Reviewing my life helps me decide what I want to continue doing, what I want to stop doing, and what I want to start doing
• Planning ahead helps: You can’t plan for everything, but a little foresight can make things a lot easier

Gaps are great for thinking about these things: biking to work, waiting in line, getting ready for bed, relaxing during a long weekend. I review my key priorities and brainstorm ideas for the next steps. I make lists in my notebook, tap ideas into my phone, type thoughts into my laptop, or think out loud (good for bike rides!).

Most of my notes are in scattered places, and that’s okay. I don’t need a perfect record of everything. I don’t need a well-organized outline. I don’t mind covering the same ground again. Every time I make a list, I learn from what I add, change, forget, or remove.

I revisit my plans regularly. Every week, I review the things I’ve accomplished, plan what I want to do the next week, and check how I feel about how I’m doing. Once in a while, I flip through my old mindmaps and notes, crossing out things I’m no longer interested in and adding new ideas.

Every so often, I sit down and flesh out the plans further, sharing them on my blog or adding them to my private notes. I think about what I want to learn, and I plan my curriculum for getting there. I think about the experiments I want to try, and I take the first step. I think about what I want, and I dig deeper to find out if I really want it or it’s something I think that I want. These plans change, and that’s good. The changes tell me more about myself.

I don’t have a firm plan for my life. I don’t have goals like “I want to be ____ by ____” or “I want to _____ by ______.” Many people have these bucket lists – things they want to do before they die. It’s easy to get carried away by these goals, though. Many people plan themselves into unhappiness by saying, “I’ll be happy when I…”. I try to not give in to the temptation to think that happiness is something external, something caused by events or reached when you get to a threshold.

I like to think that I plan out of curiosity. I’m curious about certain things, and I can make certain decisions that get me closer to understanding. For example, I’m curious about entrepreneurship and parenting. With a little planning, we can give ourselves as good a foundation as any. I can’t dictate the cards that are dealt, but I can stack the deck.

How would I like to get better at planning my life?

I’d love to learn more from other people’s lives. I read voraciously to learn about other people’s patterns, and I also ask people about their lives and their decisions. The more I learn about the different paths people have taken, the more I can explore and prepare for possible futures, and the more ideas I can pick up and play with.

I’m working on getting better at documenting and reviewing my decisions. I read a lot about decision science and decision management. I like the way that the practice of thinking through my decisions helps me understand future ones. I’m looking forward to writing about more decisions.

I’m looking forward to testing more of these plans. Many things take time. The wait is fun because I can periodically tweak my plans to try new ideas, understand things better, and get closer to what I want. Besides, there’s always the chance I’ll be surprised, and that helps me learn to think on my feet. (Many of these surprises are awesome!) Life is good.

Thanks to Soha for the nudge to write about this!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Planning my life (Sacha Chua's blog)

Read the original or check out the comments on: Weekly review: Week ending May 18, 2012 (Sacha Chua's blog)

I take most of my text notes using the Emacs text editor. In particular, I use Org Mode because org-capture totally rocks. It’s easy for me to quickly take a timestamped note. I share most of my notes on my blog, but some stay in my private notes – post drafts, sensitive information, random tidbits. I save sensitive information to an encrypted location as needed. Every week, I review my inbox of notes, filing them under the appropriate headings in a large outline file.

Org is great for text. It can handle attachments too, but I want a more graphical way to manage the visual notes and reference pictures that I take. Evernote’s handwriting recognition gives me a way to search for words in my sketchnotes, which is awesome for digging up sketchnotes or book notes (and for wowing people; yes, the future is here). OneNote is better at capturing screenshots and snippets, though, so I use it to collect elements from sketches and pictures that I like. I also use OneNote for Latin studies because it feels the most like a paper notebook.

I share as much as possible on my blog so that I can have more ways to get to what I know. Google searches occasionally lead me back to blog posts I’ve completely forgotten about, which is pretty nifty. Besides, people often comment and share even more information, and that’s awesome.

I’m still trying to figure out better ways to get to what I’ve stored in all these places. I’ve been going back and adding more posts to this topical index. I’m thinking of reviewing the 6,000+ posts in my archive and rating them on a scale of 1-5 so that I can filter them for the highlights view of my blog. So much in the past, and that’s just ten years of writing – imagine what the archive will be like when I’ve been writing and drawing for decades. =)

I picked up this quote recently. It’s from Carl Sagan:

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

• Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Writing, drawing, and photography are all miniature time machines. They’re amazing and fantastic, but you’ve got to have a way back into them in order to make the most of them.

How do you manage your notes?

Read the original or check out the comments on: Taking stock of the way I take notes (Sacha Chua's blog)

Playing around with different ways to draw simple figures. =)

Investigating the effects of drawing lines from different directions. I’m right-handed.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Drawing studies (Sacha Chua's blog)

I’ve been thinking about what the code for responsive life would look like. I recently accepted another contract, which means I’m pretty much working at close to capacity. Although I really like the breathing room of having a day or two free each week, it also seemed like a good opportunity to make a difference. With the reduction in my discretionary time, what do I give up, and what do I shift around?

Working a little later during the afternoons means that I can’t come home early to cook something nice for dinner. My husband’s been doing most of the cooking lately, but I don’t want him saddled with all the housework. Besides, I enjoy cooking. I can shift that to more of the weekends. By cooking and baking our meals in advance, we get to enjoy making food, and the weeks are a little bit easier. I thought about trying one of those meal delivery services, or even experimenting with a personal chef. I don’t know. I get a lot of intangible benefits from learning how to cook, especially when my husband and I are cooking together.

Some things I simply need to drop or postpone. For example, studying Latin takes me a lot of time. I struggle with the inflections. I don’t think I’ll be able to focus on it well over the next few weeks, so I’ll take it up again when the crunch time is over. I will probably have to repeat some of things I learned, but I think it will be all right.

Sometimes it’s a matter of investing in more tools and social processes. For example, I’m experimenting with dictation as a way to write while doing other things, or while relaxing my wrists. I’m thinking of restarting my experiments in outsourcing, too. It should be easy to find someone who can handle the data entry from the receipts that I’m scanning, or who can help me cross-reference my passport entry stamps with trips in my record so that when I submit my application for Canadian citizenship, all my paperwork is in order. Little things like that, particularly little things that take a lot of time — those would be great candidates for outsourcing.

There are some hobbies that I still want to hang onto. Writing and gardening are both great ways for me to relax. Drawing lets me take notes from books and presentations. I guess that’s a little like the min-width of a web site design. I don’t want my life get any smaller than that. I don’t want to work so much that I don’t have time to spend with family and friends, or my laptop and a good book. After all, this is my adventure. I can choose what I do.

So far things have been wonderful, so I just want to make sure that I monitor the balance as I try out this new arrangement. That way, I can fix things if anything starts to get out of whack.

What if I stretch life the other way? Both of these contracts will eventually wrap up, and I occasionally think about what I want to do next. I’d like to see what it’s like to spend some focused time on building things: writing a book, working on my own code, playing around with ideas. I guess the web design equivalent of this would be is building a site for people who have those humongous monitors. Just have so much more room to play with – that’s a completely different playing field.

Different kinds of work lend us different metaphors for looking at life. It might be interesting to look at life through the lens of design. How can I improve the user experience? How can I adapt to changing conditions? How can I take advantage of emerging technologies and toolkits?

We’ll see. This is going to be fun.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Responsive web, responsive life (Sacha Chua's blog)

Org habits are recurring tasks. For example, everyday, I want to:

• take my vitamins
• capture a quick note about the day, and
• plan the next day

Every week, I want to:

• talk to my mom
• check the org-mode mailing list
• write a weekly review and plan the next week
• clear and reorganize my belt bag
• clear my inbox
• write a bunch of blog posts
• back up my computer

Once a month, I want to:

• update the topical index for my blog
• review and uninstall programs
• balance my books and update my budget
• review the past month and plan the next
• check the library for new books

Org habits let me manage my task list without cluttering future days with tasks. The Org agenda view displays habits that are due today, indicating consistency with colour. In particular, it shows overdue days in red, so you can get the Seinfeld-esque pleasure/commitment-device of not breaking the chain.

Here’s a view from Sunday:

2 days-agenda (W19-W20):
Sunday     13 May 2012
               8:00...... ----------------
              10:00...... ----------------
              12:00...... ----------------
              14:00...... ----------------
              15:57...... now - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
              16:00...... ----------------
              18:00...... ----------------
  organizer:  22:00...... TODO Capture a one-sentence note                                           !      
  organizer:  22:00...... TODO Plan the next day                                    ** ***** ** *****!      
  organizer:  Scheduled:  TODO Make a list of recipes I want to learn
  organizer:  Scheduled:  TODO Write a bunch of blog posts             :writing:
  organizer:  Scheduled:  TODO Set up WordPress as my backup system
Monday     14 May 2012 W20
  organizer:  Scheduled:  TODO Build Emacs interface so that I can have Org automatically switch my tasks

To use Org habits, customize org-modules and enable the habit module. To set something as a habit, use C-c C-x p (org-set-property) to set the STYLE property to habit. For more information, you should definitely check out the Org manual’s section on habits.

Yay Emacs and the people who contribute to it!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Org-mode and habits (Sacha Chua's blog)

Click on the image for a larger version or contact me for a high-res version (2608x1600px). Feel free to share this under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.

Lots of great research released under Creative Commons. Yay Jeremiah Owyang and Altimeter!

Quick notes for searching, more later: Social business hierarchy of needs: Foundation –> Safety –> Formation –> Enablement –> Enlightenment

If you like this, you might also like:

• my notes from the previous Third Tuesday Toronto talk (Engagio)
• more sketchnotes from meetups and books
• the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup group
• other cool sketchnotes around the Web

Enjoy!

Here’s the text from the image to make it easier to search for:

Jeremiah Owyang
Third Tuesday Toronto: May 14, 2012
Sketchnotes: Sacha Chua (@sachac): LivingAnAwesomeLife.com

untrained employees
advanced companies prepare internally first

~180 accounts for average enterprise
-only 25% active
Social media mostly separate from rest of site/db

Frequency of social media crises
-exposure to poor customer experience
-poor influencer relations
-violation of ethical guidelines rogue employees

Social sanitation
Reinforcing bad behavior
We’re teaching them to yell at their friends.

Constantly getting ahead of themselves.

Advanced companies
Social business hierarchy of needs

5 Englightenment
4 Enablement Empowerment scaling
3 Formation asset inventory Center of Excellence
2 Safety Team workflow Crisis prep
1 Foundation Policy
Education required
social media & communities

Holistic
Real-time
Predictive
Predict what customers are going to do
Integrate into databases, etc.
Build better products
Tap employees

self-serve hubs Chatteratti (EZE help, compensation) bit.ly/Altimeter Social

strategic internal communications tactic
Governance
Policy
Guidelines
Training
important for scaling

10.8%
Decentralized centralized

41% Hub and spoke
sometimes on their behalf

18%
Dandelion
COE empowers business units

1.4%
Holistic
Safe & consistent
(Best Buy, Zappos)
I do customer support

Team Aug. 11
1.5 social strategist 3 comm manager soc media manager 1 analyst 1.5 dev

content strategist, emerging role
-editorials, ex. journalists, comm agencies…

Education
-Executives
-Strategists/Business units
-all employees

Access
-Tools
-Everyone has access & must be trained

Listening centre
some involving business unit centres
triage
-good
-bad
-ugly

FireBell simulation of social media crisis

Most crises: Friday afternoon

Q&A: #3TYYZ
-Analysis? CRM, Omniture (Adobe), SAS, Eloqua… A number of different directions. System integrators.
-Adobe Social. Very bullish, if they can act like a small company. Paid, earned, owned media
Also watch Lithium Technologies & bazaarvoice (300% ROI for ratings). New ad units, IBM social metrics.
-Soc media correlations? Social loyalty (people are loyal to each other), gamifications.
C-suite: Novelty, fear, potential for new business models.
any data company stands to gain early in the space, lots of experimentations
-Social software: Combrian explosion. Lots of duplicate companies, VCs investing in clones
Best-in-class will probably connect with each other.
-Startup? Yes, but you can go through steps faster. Our research focuses on enterprise, but can still help.
-Soc media agencies? Ads right now. May need to restructure. Everything starts with earned.
-Disclosure? Vendors unlikely. Agencies making tech-agnostic methodologies.
-Facebook fans? Loose affinity. Facebook wants people to pay.
-Product is info? Utility, etc. Go up a level: Lifestyle, workstyle. G8, IBM.
Get clients to tell stories. See banks for examples. Orsten in.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Sketchnotes: Jeremiah Owyang @ Third Tuesday Toronto (#3TYYZ) on the Social Business Hierarchy of Needs (Sacha Chua's blog)

After the dough rises, it takes me just an hour to prepare four pizzas. I divide the dough into four parts, forming them into rectangles by stretching and rolling them out. I use practically all of the baking sheets in the house. While the pizza crusts rise again, I chop and grate the rest of the ingredients. Assembly is quick and fun, although I still tend to err on the side of loading the pizza up with too much food. Baking takes twenty minutes per batch of two pizzas, and then we have plenty of pizza to eat through the week.

We’re always looking for kid-friendly recipes that we can cook in bulk. Pizza is a great way to use up bits and pieces from the fridge: pepperoni, chicken, peppers, tomatoes, and so on. Other family go-to recipes include pasta and curry. Good to be able to make things ahead!

I moved the calendar to the fridge so that we can use it to plan the meals during the week. Another step towards even smoother everyday routines!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Pizza pizza pizza pizza (Sacha Chua's blog)

The Razor A5 Lux was $69.99 during a Toys R Us sale a few weeks ago. None of the stores we went to had it in stock, so W- got a raincheck. This week, we dropped by Dufferin Mall and bought the kick scooter. The box wouldn’t fit in my bike bags, so we tested the scooter and discarded the box when we were satisfied that we didn’t need to return it. Without the box, the scooter fit neatly into my bike bag.

My bike’s big and hard to lug up the stairs, so I’ve been trying out the A5 for short trips. It cuts the 750m walk from ten minutes to five, although there’s a bit more exercise involved. I don’t have the same carrying capacity that I have on my bicycle, but the scooter is a lot more convenient for short trips. Worth it, I think! We’ll see how it works out over the next couple of weeks.

Read the original or check out the comments on: Decision review: Razor A5 Lux kick scooter (Sacha Chua's blog)

From last week’s plans

Read the original or check out the comments on: Weekly review: Week ending May 11, 2012 (Sacha Chua's blog)

Click on the image to view a larger version.

I weighed everything we received from Cooper’s Farm for this season’s community-supported agriculture program so that I could compare it with Plan B Organic Farms. The numbers always surprise me when I tally things up at the end. Did we really go through that many potatoes? Wow, we actually got more onions than cabbage. Sure didn’t feel that way.

Getting vegetables bi-weekly instead of weekly definitely helped stave off the “oh no I’m swimming in vegetables” feeling. Some food was still wasted, though. Some of the beets got mold before we could do stuff with them (they came moist) and the rutabaga and turnips stumped us. But we managed to plow through most of the vegetables.

We averaged 5.5kg per delivery, which was less than what we received with Plan B Organic Farms (see my fall analysis). That was a fall share, though, so winter/spring is understandably smaller in terms of the harvest. I opted for Cooper’s Farm because I thought the delivery might come in really handy during winter, but this winter was unusually mild, so I didn’t end up with as many “thank goodness I don’t have to trudge out for vegetables in the snow” moments as I thought I might have. That’s okay.

I wish someone else was keeping track of what the corresponding Plan B Organic Farms results were! Oh well. =)

This season, we’re going to skip the CSA and buy our vegetables ourselves. I want to see what that comes out to in terms of cost and whether we still get through as many vegetables without the forced commitment of a vegetable box. We’ll see!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Quantified Awesome: Analysis of the winter/spring season for the Cooper’s Farm community-supported agriculture program (Sacha Chua's blog)

I prefer to draw on a computer because I can use colour, erase what I’ve written, and move items around. My favourite drawing application for this is Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, which has the best pen-based controls I’ve come across so far. When I don’t have my laptop, I draw on paper and scan it in. I’ve been thinking about getting a tablet, but I’m holding off on it until I pass certain thresholds that I’ve set.

After I draw my notes and clean them up a little, I save them to a directory on my hard disk. I save a lower-resolution version to another directory, where it automatically gets imported into Evernote and synchronized with Dropbox. Evernote lets me search my handwriting, and it’s good for looking up individual items. With Dropbox, I can use Foldersync Lite to synchronize my sketchnotes folder to my phone’s SD card, where I can use Gallery to browse my sketches. The sketches are readable on my phone’s screen, and I can zoom in for details.

Windows Live Writer makes it easy to include the image in a blog post. It automatically scales the image to my preferred dimensions, and I can set it to link to a higher-resolution version of the image. After I publish it, I announce it on Twitter as well.

When I come across elements I like in other people’s sketchnotes, I take a small screenshot and I add them to a Microsoft Onenote notebook for sketchnote inspiration. I collect colour combinations, visual metaphors, title treatments, lettering examples, and so on. It’s easy to flip through the notebook and search for specific keywords.

I’m working on getting even better at sketchnotes. For me, this means:

• using more colours whether I’m drawing on my computer or on paper: I can try banning black from my visual vocabulary for a while
• drawing more quick icons to illustrate my notes, even if they’re literal
• drawing more visual metaphors so that I can get beyond the first idea
• experimenting with more layouts
• collecting sketchnote elements from other artists and keeping them in a notebook for inspiration

It’s easy to get started with sketchnotes. The key things for me were:

• Give yourself permission to draw badly. Stick figures? Wonky shapes? Sure!
• Leave yourself plenty of whitespace so that you can come back and draw. Write on different parts of the page, not just one side.
• Write less by focusing on the important concepts. Draw more during the “filler” time, or add drawings after you’ve written your notes.
• Have fun!

Read the original or check out the comments on: Sketchnote workflow (Sacha Chua's blog)

Read the original or check out the comments on: Sketchnotes: The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future (Sacha Chua's blog)