Introduction

Hello Everybody! This is the #week2 article of the #4articles4weeks writing hackathon. Of many topics given, I picked up the topic that tells about the most helpful online tool to self-improve as a developer. It's because I want to share my experience with the important tool - A note-taking app that helps me a lot. Meanwhile, you can check my #week1 article here.

There are several note-taking apps available. You can pick any one of those apps that fits your need. I use the note-taking app for the following things. But this tool is more like an open-ended toy. You can put them to use in your own ways.

Notes during the Learning phase

When I initially started my career as a developer I learned many concepts, applied a few of them in writing code, and failed when applying things that I learned. Then I tried to resolve the issues and kept learning many things. Clearly, I didn't do one important thing in this phase. That is documenting my learning. Because slowly the concepts that I learned but used less escaped my memory. I saw a pattern where I had to learn the same thing again. Each time when this happened I really wished that I documented my learning. I always write my learning in a notebook as I am a pen-and-paper person. Writing on paper makes my thought process and words flow. But the main disadvantage is the tendency to lose the information if your notebook pages are over, and difficulty going back to the part that you want to see among the notes. So I started to follow a trick of writing on paper, taking a photo of it, and putting it in a note-keeping app. I started to have the advantage of both worlds as I will keep the titles organized in my note-keeping app and it was easily searchable with the proper title name. Keeping good notes of things you are learning can be helpful if you plan to write a blog about it.

Meeting notes

Never go to attend a meeting without taking a note. I learned this in a tough way as it's easy for points discussed in the meeting to sneak out and lose. Also, discussing points discussed in the meeting will help you reflect on them later. There are many times that after putting meeting notes I realized that a few of the meetings that I attended are not very useful to me. So I stopped attending those meetings. Reflecting on your meeting notes will pave the way for a better-structured meeting that you may organize later as you go prepared.

Documenting the design, architecture, and infrastructure chosen

There are N number of times in my experience when I forgot why I took a specific decision about code, design architecture, or infrastructure. What comes in handy during those times is the documentation that I put before building the feature. But always remember to update the documentation whenever there is a change in the feature. During my initial years, I forgot to update the changes in documentation and I had to check my code history or check the comments in my code to understand the changes which are really difficult ways. It's important to document all the brainstormed ideas and the final idea that is picked for implementation. This way it will help in the future to understand on what basis decisions are made. While many organizations have documentation tools to note down these details, it would be useful to keep this in your notes for personal learning. Just make sure that the design doesn't have any confidential details that should not be noted down.

To-Do List

For me marking my to-do list as completed for a day is very satisfying as it makes me feel that I have accomplished certain things. It may be a very simple task or a complex task broken down into small tasks. Having a to-do list helps me to see the progress towards the task that I have. Also having a definite number of things to do helps me to focus on that task and gives me better control.

Reminder

There are many things that I put a reminder in my mind like scheduling a meeting with X person to discuss, review code, verify code part that has to be refactored, issue ID that I have to check, and so on. Rather than keeping it in mind, putting it in note note-taking app was a game-changing moment for me. The moment I started putting it in notes, my mind had a liberating feeling. I don’t need to keep carrying it in my mind and I know it’s safe in my second brain- my notes. It felt like my mind space is clear and I have kept space free for thinking or pondering better ideas rather than remembering.

Journalling

Journalling was so helpful for me to get myself out of burnout and other stressful things in life. I started religiously putting down things that I liked to do and things that I didn’t like. Reflecting after a few days I could see a clear pattern in my journal. I realized that it makes me happy when I can help others or learn something new. I don’t like spending more of my time attending meetings that don’t add any value to me. It helped me to set boundaries and block unnecessary meetings. This simple act was one of the things that helped me to recover from my burnout

Think tank

There are so many weird ideas that I get and I have lost many of them as time passes. I started putting all the ideas that I kept getting in my notes. I have ideas ranging from selling pre-loved toys to meal subscriptions for elderly people in my idea bank. Putting it in my notes was a savior as I could go back to it and I have wondered about how different my brain thinks of solutions for the problem that I am encountering. I have put some action plans for some of my ideas and I really hope I will start building one of my ideas into business in the future.

Conclusion

This may seem like long work to do. Believe me, it will be like that for a few days and later note-taking will become part of your routine. The amount of benefits that I reaped out of note-taking action is very huge. There are so many note-taking tools online. Pick up one that suits you and try getting into the habit of noting down. A few months later, when you reflect it will be rewarding. Happy taking notes and getting things done :)