Forem: Keagan Van Rooyen

How do you make notes?

Keagan Van Rooyen — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 20:25:29 +0000

I recently wrote a post titled "Why I use Markdown to take notes", the tl;dr is: I started using Markdown for meeting notes, and the benefits for me. Now I come to you with the question, how do you take notes?

Let me give you an example: You are working as normal, and then someone says something important to you. This is something you either need to complete or make note of for the future.
How would you take note of that? For me, I have post-it notes, and I will write the note on them. I then stick it on my desk in front of me. I have also tried using a To-Do application, like Microsoft To Do.
I guess I am trying to find a happy medium between the two 🤷‍♂️

Found a typo?

If you've found a typo, a sentence that could be improved or anything else that should be updated on this blog post, you can access it through a git repository and make a pull request. Instead of posting a comment, please go directly to github.com/Kvanrooyen/dev.to and open a new pull request with your changes.

How do you explain your excitment, when you fix that bug?

Keagan Van Rooyen — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 17:49:34 +0000

I hope the title makes sense because this is something I have been thinking about for a little while now. You know that feeling when you finally get that bug, and it turned out to be something relatively simple. You've spent hours Googling, and browsing Stack Overflow, and then when you finally get it fixed, that feeling. How do you explain that to someone who isn't a developer or even someone who doesn't know much about IT? If I had to try and explain that to my grandparents or even my parents, they would probably look at me like I'm crazy 😂

Found a typo?

Why I use Markdown to take notes

Keagan Van Rooyen — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:28:12 +0000

This is my first article, so please go gentle on me 😁 but I wanted to talk about why I started using Markdown to take notes.

Why Markdown

Before I started using Markdown, I used OneNote to take my notes. Why wouldn't I, it was cross-platform, it synced my notes across devices, and it was familiar. I started using it to take notes in my meetings, and it worked ok. I could take the notes, and then I could send them as a message later in our group chat. My issue came in the form of me spending too much time worrying about the formatting and then after the meeting, I would need to format the notes again. When I send the messages on our group chat, I can use a small amount of Markdown.

After using OneNote for about a week of taking notes, I decided that I would try using Markdown. I had some experience with Markdown from GitHub, so I felt comfortable taking notes with it. Markdown seemed like it would help solve my "issues" since I could quickly format the notes (Mainly bolding important things), and focus on taking better notes.

Choosing and editor

When it came to choosing a Markdown editor, I had 2 main requirements:

Open Source
Simple and distraction-free design

I came across some great looking editors, most of which I can't remember now. Eventually, I decided on using Mark Text, it was almost perfect out the box. I only changed a couple of small things before I started using it. I changed the default theme, the font size and have it open a specific folder on launch.

Final Setup

I have now been using Mark Text and Markdown to take notes, for almost 3 months. So far the experience has been incredibly smooth. I have a folder saved in the cloud, which contains all my notes, this folder is also stored locally on my device. This way if I get a new device or need to use another device, all I need to do is install Mark Text and point to the folder with my notes.

I have saved myself a decent amount of time, by switching to Markdown. I know longer need to spend as much time post-meeting, making sure the notes look good and are easy to read/understand. My typing speed seems to have improved as well, so that's always good. 😃