How do people organize their personal notes?

Doug Hiser · 2014-05-05T08:10:57+00:00

I have several note files that I put notes in. * The biggest note file is highlights and contains thousands of entries. I manage the complexity of this by keeping all of the highlights associated with a specific translation so that I can just open this translation and find the highlight quickly by verse. I also use search…

Doug Hiser

I have several note files that I put notes in.

The biggest note file is highlights and contains thousands of entries. I manage the complexity of this by keeping all of the highlights associated with a specific translation so that I can just open this translation and find the highlight quickly by verse. I also use search to find things in this large collection.
The second file is topical where I collect notes on various topics in the Bible. I use the outlining in the notes window to create categories and sub-categories. But the problem with this is that because I have hundreds of entries I can not collapse the "outline" so that I can not see the organization other than scroll thru hundreds of entries. I find that sometimes I start two different categories that really cover the same topic, but is in two different parts of the hierarchy. This is the crutch of my problem. I can not search for headings, and I scrolling thru a large list is untenable. Perhaps I need to flatten this and then store things alphabetic. The problem with this is synonyms: did I store that topic as "greed" or "love of money".
My third file is for Bible Studies, and I organize these around Scripture, but some are topical and have the same issue as my topical file.

What do people do to organize the chaos? Perhaps I need more files and thus can make each file smaller.

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Comments

Doc B

What do people do to organize the chaos?

Hi Doug,

I've seen a number of different philosophies on organizing notes, most of them dependent on the nature of the note-taker. You sound like one who takes more-than-the-average number of notes, so you probably do need a better system. Hopefully you'll get several different ideas here. As for mine...

Here are a couple screenshots of my notes files. Basic construction is simple: I have a file for each book of the Bible (they are numbered with some numbering system that seems conventional...someone who's been to seminary can probably name the system...I copied it from other sources...the intent was for the notes files to automatically sort themselves numerically, but that doesn't happen in the drop down list). I also have notes files for topics of interest, a current study I might be working on, or a particular resource. You can see some of these in the two screenshots below.

HTH.

DMB

Hi Doug.

My answer? I don't. (Probably not the helpful advice you were wanting.)

Logos was 'never' designed with notes in mind ('Bible study'). Each addition has been similar to a visit to the dentist for Logos.

I keep ALL my notes outside Logos. Even highlights, I have a single file and delete it every now and then (mainly use highlights to get my brain engaged and keep track of where I'm at).

But then I use maybe 4 or 5 Bible packages. I re-PB my notes every couple months and they come into Logos as a commentary. So also my other packages.

EDIT: But as Doc notes for you, I'm a heavy note taker. My note database has 101K notes in it now. But that's over a lengthy period.

Doug Hiser

HTH,

I like the extra level of organization. I think I will have to reorganize things into multiple files. I don't know about a file per book in the Bible, but I could start off by Torah, History, Minor Prophet type organization and then break things out as needed.

The topical studies will require some planning and thought, but this at least help things one level.

Thanks.

Doug Hiser

Denise,

101k notes. That is a lot. I like Logos because then I have my notes where ever I go, but finding the right note has become a problem. Thanks for the input. It is worth considering moving things out of Logos now before I get much bigger. It took me a day to move my notes into Logos and they have grown in the last year.

Blessings.

TCBlack

What do people do to organize the chaos?

I use a different program. [:$]I have one note file for each chapter of the Bible and one note file for every verse (which has notes so far).

The first chapter note file often contains background information and outlines for the entire book. Chapter files after that are beginning to include "preaching this" sections in which I include my thoughts and suggestions for my son who is aiming for ministry.

I have many thousands of files. This would be recklessly cumbersome if the program I used for this did not automatically load the proper verse or chapter note when I navigated to a given reference.

Ideally I could define pericope notes rather than verse notes, but I can't so often enough in the first verse in a given pericope I mention the boundaries of the text and proceed from there.

My full notes (when I have adequate time to do them properly) are based around this template:

[quote]Comparative Passages:

Parsing & Textual Variance:

Diagram:

Syntax and Exegesis:

Translation:

Explanation:

Application:

Introduction / Illustration:

Doug Hiser

TCBlack,

That sounds very involved, but your notes are more detailed than mine. I am not a pastor but just lay person. I like the Highlight notes in Logos because I can click on the star, or hover over it and see it's content. The notes I loose in Logos are my topical notes and bible studies. Perhaps these would be better outside of Logos, because it would work well to read these offline.

Thanks for the comment.

David A Egolf

Logos will search through your personal notes files and report the results separately. You will lose this feature if you keep the notes elsewhere.

By default, I start a notes file for each resource. However, for some topics; e.g. apologetics, I create a special file. One advantage of finer grained notes and highlights is that if you choose to collaborate on a particular resource or topic at a later time you can share particular notes files more conveniently. I haven't decided yet whether my ESV and ESV Study Bible get separate notes files. Following RCBlack's paradigm, I could break out specific books and chapters, but still combine notes between the resources.

Richard Kingston

I have just started to create a note file for each book of the Bible. I then plan to set up each note file as a favorite for easy navigation.

Here's my problem: how do you move notes between note files? So if one note is in the file "01.Genesis" and I want to move it to "02.Exodus", how do I do it?

For large notes - well articles really - I use Microsoft OneNote. Easy to search on topics and on words.

toughski

Logos will search through your personal notes files and report the results separately. You will lose this feature if you keep the notes elsewhere.

have you actually tried to "search through your personal notes files" and find the results with ease? Notes are the most convoluted way to search for anything in Logos.