How do u take [& preserve] notes? Keep a commonplace book of quotes or...?

[martincisneros]

In nearly 20yrs with full time given over to Him, I've NEVER taken notes, and I personally want to start doing that for this next decade, starting January-ish of '11.  I want to spend the next 14 months figuring out my particular system of note taking, because while notes may never have an important place in my life ever again, it's a type of legacy that you can leave.  There's a Scripture that says that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children and some people think that that only means borderline killing themselves with working hard, investing hard, and finding tax shelters and other gray areas for making money so that they can leave their kids and grandkids a billion dollars, while others that are more philosophical may want to do something artistic or leave some other type of legacy.  But both the legacy issue and the leanings towards being an educator of some type, beyond just publishing a book, magazine, etc., is making it increasingly problematic for me that I don't keep detailed notes of what He gives me beyond something I post here, articles I've written for my websites, emails I've sent, etc.

Some of us, [in our younger more naive days,] have tended to prematurely criticize some of the ancients in an overly simplified generalized way for having developed oral traditions, or secret doctrines, secret manuscripts, or whatever.  But if we could develop a private treasury of writings of our own most private heresies that we might not feel the most liberty to share with others publicly any time in the near future because of the intolerances of the times, being accused of a certain error related to Christian doctrine, the preciousness of some of our innermost thoughts, and because we're obviously on some things still getting all of the details from Him and/or our own minds. 

And if we could hang on to our choicest sentences in a collection where we really liked how we said that 'cause we really got it said, etc. Additionally, there are some areas, like Bible prophecy or whatever, perhaps Word studies, where we genuinely feel like we're only getting it piecemeal and on such and such a topic, it could take us the rest of our lives to have a full eight to twelve pages of an outline of it.  One of the things that I'm inclined to do is get about 12 really big 5 inch binders that can hold a thousand pages or so, and maybe come up with 10 section dividers for each of them, and have each of the binders be for each month of the year, so that one binder would have private things He gave me for January of '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, etc., for the whole decade and each divider be a different year of that process, while the next binder would be for February of each year of the next decade, etc. with each binder representing each of the 12 months and noting the most private things He gives me, or the strongest spiritual meat He gives me, over the course of this next decade.  Similar thoughts have occured to me about having a collection, perhaps an additional collection, of binders for having these same things organized by topic, so that I'm simultaneously keeping a mystical/scholarly diary by season of life and also developing syllubuses of what I feel I could share with others.

What are your thoughts on an organization process for notes for this next decade of things I get that I may or may not publicly say anything about?  A private blog could also be more cheaply done, since the binders that I've got in mind for holding that much are easily $40 or $50 a piece.  And an online blog could have tags based upon the month, based upon the month of the year, and based upon the subject so that you might do a:

January, January '11, faith
January, January '11, hope
February, February '11, faith
February, February '12, patience
etc.

so that you've got the option of reading everything by month in each of the years covered in that month, or just all of the posts of a month of a particular year, or by subject organization whether it was said in January or September but if you're clickable on faith, or patience, or UR, or humility, or Lordship, or spiritual growth, or whatever.  You can also make it as intricate as you'd like with additional tags on "personal insight," "thought I heard Him say," regarding a particular "author," and obviously you could include movie reviews.

My question marks on having a private blog that's separate from regular ministry or business stuff, depending on what you do, and perhaps even using a pseudonym is that in the event of your passing on via accidents, foul play, or whatever, then your work could be lost to your family.  A particular computer that's given over to only being used for this kind of blog, like a separate laptop or notebook that you'd keep for only archiving all of this in notepad, or Word, or HTML documents, or whatever can be damaged, stolen, not possible for someone to get into after you've moved on if you were too clever on passwords, and an online whatever can require a password if it's an online diary, and likewise can be useless to those "left behind."  CDs can probably be kept in a safe and/or the above idea of the collection of binders can be on either a whole bookcase devoted to these private notes, a locked case with a shelf devoted to storing this, or whatever.  How would you go about the preservation of a legacy of private documents and/or your notes?  Obviously discs can be printed out later and paper copies can be scanned into a computer for backup onto a disc and/or a harddrive that's either integrated into a computer system or a portable drive that's devoted to only this purpose of having this collection of notes.

For those of you that are in the place that I'm in of wanting to start keeping these kinds of notes for a book someday that a few short years or months ago you didn't know you'd want to write, or with a potential legacy thing in mind for heirs of deeper teaching that you might not get into while you're around, or whatever -- what are your thoughts on how to go about an extra collection of writing notes with either posterity or perhaps future ministry teaching in mind?  And for those of you that are virtually insane about your note taking, what have you found to work and/or not work as far as a genuine system for keeping your notes organized?  I've known more than one person to keep an extra paid email account that the only thing that they use it for is archiving their private songs, meditations, and revelations that He's given them.  Obviously the benefits of a paid email account include that you don't have to login every month.  What's your system for archiving your thoughts, revelations, and studies for the future that genuinely might not be anything you'd actually share with anyone in this life time?! roflol...but just in case, you're hanging onto it, in case you're forgetful or want to compare it with other things you'd write or discover or whatever??

[SQ]

 I have been writing my prayers thoughts in a notebook for years, it really helps me to stay in touch with our Father.
There are times though a couple months or more that may pass by that I haven't written in my notebook.
I always date the day year that prayer or thoughts written.
I have many filled notebooks, some are really personal.
I don't want them read by anyone while I am living, I don't lock them in a safe but made it clear to my husband those are between me and God.
I (almost) trust him that he will honor my request and not snoop ever!

[sparrow]

Everything that has helped me either something that I've written or something I've found elswhere all goes into notepad files and into folders on my computer. I have tons of stuff. And there is no real organization. I just give each file a name that will jog my memory what it's about. I like it because I can easily do a search with a keyword and pop up everything that I have. I don't know what I would do without being able to look back on and meditate on this stuff. It is ESSENTIAL. By the way I have quite a nice collection of posts from people on tentmaker in these files... Just different conversations, discussions, maybe even just a one-liner that has helped me become closer to God.  :HeartThrob:  :HeartThrob:  :HeartThrob:
God bless you all.  :icon_flower:

[WhiteWings]

There is lots of software for that. I'm the advantage of software is that it's easy to search. Such software comes in various complexities.
I really like: WinOrganizer
It allows copy and pastes from all kind of sources without loosing formating and graphics.
You can create as much sub-sub-sub sections as you like. I use that software for 5+ years for about everything. I surely deserves a few hours of your time. I would certainly give is a try for the 30-day demo period. You can get my 'scripture database' to see how things can look like. (contact me if interested)
Weird option perhaps but you can also take notes in software that is originally meant for creating helpfiles. Then you go on the HTML path. Advantage is that you can have your whole notebook published on a website within 10 minutes. That's something I recently starting to use and it's a good choice. Slightly less flexible than WinOrganzier but a bonus for the website.
Then ofcourse you can just store everything in seperate files on your PC and use a local search engine to finds stuff. Similar to a local Google but more complex searches.

Also:
- WizFolders Organizer
- TreePad

[Redlettervoice]

Well, Martin, I got it figured out "this time."  Had some computer crashes, etc.  I "do" wish I had chronologically written down my dreams and visions over the years.....but I have a "file" called MY
Writings, in my WEB Mail, it is not limited ........for space, and most
of what is in it is things that I "have" shared.....in case there is
someone else I want to share with.

Before I got my computer, I typed things and put them in binders.

I have given instructions to my granddaughter re these things.

For right now, they are in lock because of my email password. Which
"she" doesn't have but my daughter does.