I am going to be taking a bunch of online classes some are synchronus (happen at a specific time) others are assynchronus (take them when ever you want). All of them are related to starting or growing a business.

I have been looking for a way to organize what I am learning so that I can distill the info and more importantly go back and use the info if I don't have time to use it immediately. That is why I am taking this class. I had started playing around with behance's Action Method and while I think it is good I don't like the online tools for it. Not to mention that the specific papers and what not are expensive. I like Belsky's book and agree with alot of what he says but ultimately that is not going to work for me. 

I liked Tim's combination of tactile and digital. I am going be using Circa/Roll-a-bind notebooks and Springpad, a digital notebook system for collecting anything you can find on the web. 

You can find my springpad notebooks here: http://springpad.com/#!/swaggerdesign The books are mostly public so you can open them and poke around.

I'll add a video link to the physical system I set up after listening to Timothy when I don't sound like a muppet with a cold.

Well, now I sound like a dog with Kennel Cough so you are getting still pictures! Or not since they are all too big!

I took a letter size Circa notebook -there is no magic in the Circa, a three ring binder would work the same. However what I like about the Circa/ Roll-a-bind type systems is that you can add in different size papers so if you end up taking notes in a smaller notebook it will still work with the larger journal. 

Each section starts out with an index page. That page gets labeled with the date of the referenced sheet and the title of the sheet. Each section has a pocket to keep short term references and a pad of sticky notes in case I need them. I use these so I can stick them in a smaller notebook if I have to go look for something specific later. Once I finish with a project through all of the stages then I can pull out all the pieces and archive them away.

Section One) Brainstorming: I was playing with ideas for an immersion site for my novel series so the section is filled with blank paper that for this I made a kind of mind map with all the different businesses and locations that come up in the series, following that is a sort of family tree of all the connections between the characters. Once some of the ideas really take hold they get moved on to 

Section Two) Action Steps: This section uses the action steps sheets that are part of the Action Method from Behance. Here I can distill the brainsorming stuff in to clearer steps to take to achieve my desired goal. In the example above I decided that a travel map or newspaper like structure wouldn't really work so I went with a scrapbook kept by the matriarch of the family. I started writing down all the things I would need to do to keep a digital scrapbook on my existing site (It turned out to be even easier than I thought!) In this case I didn't need to learn a bunch of new skills but often that is the case so the next section is

Section Three) Course Notes: Another index so I can find things later. These sheets are 2 column as Timothy suggested. One column is lined the other not so I can make different kinds of notes in each. I use the blank space to call out particular things in the lined column too.

Section Four) is for long term projects that are just simmering for right now. Ex. I am looking at turning some of my novels in to Graphic Novels but the writing for those is very different than I normally write. so I have taken a scene from one of my books and am reworking it. Plotting out the action, dialogue, descriptions, and interior thoughts. This then I broke into panels. I have paper in here that will allow me to story board each panel and write out the ideas in each. A similar system would work when I am starting a new book. I am going to be doing a series of videos for a side business I am building on how to e-Publish. Those will get storyboarded the same way.

I'm hoping this system lets me go through things repeatedly and constantly be distilling what I need down to its bare essense.