John Lamberti, an LAPD homicide detective, talking about a tool specific to his profession that he really likes using. From Dan Heath’s podcast What It’s Like to Be:
“Okay, this is gonna sound crazy, but it is my notebook. It is basic, it is unapologetically analog, and I am otherwise all in on technology, and I’ve tried talking notes digitally, but I’ve yet to find a good substitute for a pen and paper. I don’t have to turn it on; I don’t have to make sure it’s charged; I don’t have to make sure it’s connected to wi-fi; it can’t shut down and reboot on me randomly. You just open it up and you go. And everything lives in my notebook: all the details from my crime scene, notes from my witness interviews, observations that I made. It’s where you capture like the raw data of the story as it’s unfolding, and it is with me every step of the way. I don’t go anywhere without my notebook.”Related reading
All OCA notebook posts (Pinboard)
[My transcription.]
comments: 4
used at trial, too
https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002hbd76
Roland Allen’s The Notebook has a good discussion of police notebooks.
Before the web, when people were questioning the value of home computers, it was sometimes noted that things were faster by hand, such as using your printer to address an envelope, or perhaps for doing your household accounts and shopping lists.
Today I will type my poetry but I don't expect other poets to do so.
I don't suppose anybody keeps a journal by typing it.
I typed an entry last week, but only one entry, and now I don't expect to ever do so again, even though I have many short manuscripts on my hard drive.
Apple recently brought out a journal app, Journal. I know of another called Day One. To each their own. But I think a handwritten journal might encourage greater spontaneity.
I always find it so much easier to enter an appointment in a planner than on a phone.
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