Ask HN: Writers, how do you consolidate paper, digital pieces?
2 amukbils 4 7/14/2025, 3:20:02 PM
I like to write on paper, but I don't carry my notebook everywhere. So I end up writing some pieces in my notes, some in notion, some on my various notebooks.
How do you consolidate them while also being ready to write anywhere the mood strikes?
1. Have a storage bin for each project. (I use stackable plastic bins of the style you might find in elementary school classrooms. I label them by making masking-tape flags that hang off the side, and then writing on the flags with permanent marker.)
2. Keep your drafts in the bins, but also put any loose notes/sentences/paragraphs/etc. that are related to the project in the bin. Thus, the bin serves not only as the project's physical storage, but also as its inbox.
3. Work out of a notebook with pages that you can tear out; or carry around notecards or other scrap paper; or grab whatever paper is at hand when you need to write during the day. But the key is to write each discrete idea (or sentence/paragraph/etc.) on a separate piece of paper. Go about your day, writing whatever you need, but keep everything you write together.
4. At the end of your day, distribute the jots/notes/drafts into the corresponding bin.
5. When it's time to work on a particular project, grab the corresponding bin. Your drafts will be there, but so will the loose materials you have created. Incorporate the loose notes into new, combined jots/notes/drafts.
Repeat the process until the project is complete.
Ideas rarely come to us all at once according to the project to which they belong, or in the proper order. The beauty of writing discrete notes on loose papers is that it's easy to capture them and then later put them in the correct bin; and when working out of the bins, it's easy to move, group, stack, and otherwise organize or delete the ideas — working with them until your project essentially writes itself.
Happy to share more of my own experiences and suggestions if you have questions. Regardless, please let me know if you find this helpful or have any feedback.
Cheers!
I noticed you didn't say anything about digital writing, about half of my writings are in digital format. I do try to write the full idea that comes to mind before ending my writing session.
If the digital writings are incomplete and you still need to work with them, you can print them out and put them in the bins to work with later. (You can cut the printouts into paragraphs or other smaller chunks to work with them in the bins, by combining the pieces with other jots. And if they are related to or could be used with more than one project, just print out more copies.)
Likewise, if the digital files are ideas that you capture to Notion (for example) only when your notebook is unavailable, then you simply remember to print out whatever you have to "update" your bin whenever you start working with that project again. Still, if you're only capturing digitally because you don't have your notebook with you, then learning to capture each idea on its own paper and sorting into bins later may obviate the need to capture into the digital format at all, and you can do almost anything on paper as you apparently desire to.
But if the idea is that you capture on paper and then import into the digital realm to work with everything there, then just use the bins to capture the discrete ideas into what are effectively multiple inboxes, and then periodically import all the jots in a particular bin into the digital project at once (by scanning/OCR, dictating, or typing into whatever system you use, such as Notion).
From your original post I gathered that you were capturing and working on paper (and preferred to do so, perhaps publishing or storing final drafts digitally) — and I figured that, at least while drafting, you wanted everything in one place, such that not having your working notebook would throw a wrench into the system. That was one of the same problems I had. Moving to my current system solved that issue.
One hitch is figuring out how to regularly "visit" or process each bin. Another is figuring out where and how to store your bins. So just keep those points in mind.