remarkable 2: first work session

Majority of first impressions have been altered: while I initially thought the remarkable would be a replacement for the Drafts app and not a journal, it's already proven to be the opposite; I'm giving it this week to replace my paper and pen journal (which, unless things drastically change and/or it decides to erase my jottings, it's already done); figured out the left-hand thing and am now a leftie writing on a leftie-oriented device with a digital Papermate Flair (I've found a setting – marker, medium, black which makes it so) and have ordered the Lamy stylus that's basically an AL-Star with a stylus nib so I can fully merge both worlds; a leather cover, not dissimilar to my journal one, is on its way. Hopefully will find a way to keep index cards, post its, and perhaps my CW&T Pen Type-C in there alongside for quick notes and jottings. Once the Lamy arrives, it'll be quite something, I think.

File system so far:

  • Journal: one notebook per week – pretty similar to what I do here – with one page per day (scrolling journal is fantastic!) and written in the same scrawl as with my 14+ years of paper journals. When the week is done, I'll transfer a PDF over to Obsidian and save it there and start a new one. Given that I've never gone back and consulted one of those journals in the 14 years of their existence, I see no reason that I'll start now: their purpose is to get the shit out of my brain. Hopefully, as I get more acclimated to creating with it, the notebook there and the notebook here will more fully merge. Biggest thing: I didn’t miss the paper journal, not once.

  • Legal Pad: so named, ruled, for when I need to draft things or think things through on the Main Things.

  • Considering adding "Whiteboard" for mindmaps, etc - though I could do that on the Legal Pad, IDK. Doubt I'll save these, as I tend to manually add to Obsidian / main project doc as I go.

  • Quick sheets for quick jottings - sticky notes section, accessible from the main doc, would be great, but that does, I suppose, go against the guiding ethos of deep work / thinking that the remarkable inculcates. A little too much friction between brain and scrap in this case.

I've neither found the typing function / typefolio to be very useful since I'm so used to speed-freak/mistake-laden huntnpeck on a Mac with my split keyboard (if I want to add typed text, I can always add it to the note via the app and move it over) nor have I tried reading or marking up PDFs, though I've a feeling that it will be a fantastic editing and revising tool.

Battery power is down from an unboxing 67% to 28% at the time of posting this - that whole purported "two week" battery life must be in a constant period of sleep – so I'll have to plug it in in a bit but that's nothing I'm not used to: I, do, after all, have to plug in my cyborg pancreas every few days so I can stay alive so I suppose I can live with plugging in my cyborg brain as needed.

Love love love.

remarkable 2: first use / impressions

I've had the reMarkable 2 for about half an hour now (writing this on it) and three things are apparent: one, my handwriting is shit in physical or in digital form and I'm really glad I bought the TypeFolio - keyboard is quite excellent (though I'm still getting used to the layout); two, while I can see me using this for writing drafts and braindumps (like this one - indeed, I bought it as a replacement for whiteboards and legal pads), I can't yet see it replacing my paper journals (UPDATE: SEE COMMENT BELOW)); and three, the design for lefties like me leaves a bit to be desired: I have to write with it set up for a right-handed person because my left hand constantly hits the x on the top left corner of the screen and closes the doc in progress (UPDATE: SOLVED; SEE COMMENT BELOW). Other than that, no complaints; have a feeling that the more I work with it the more I'll find to do with it. Will update accordingly.

reMarkable (2) incoming...

After a few years of looking at one, I finally took the plunge yesterday and purchased a reMarkable 2 writing tablet (along with the typepad folio)...

Goals: a capture device and an easy-on writing device for pieces here – as well as fulfilling (and amplifying) the usual functions of my Boogie Board: handwritten explorations of specific sections of a WIP. Planning to use the reMarkable app on desktop and mobile to facilitate the export and import of notes and scaps and other writings from reMarkable to Obsidian for work and zettelkasten archiving. Potential use as a Daily Note device too?

Should arrive next week. Penning this to start the tag and log its purchase.