How to organise quick notes: the seven-scratchpad method

Why quick notes get messy

Quick notes are the things you jot down in a hurry: a phone number, a shopping item, a half-idea, the three things to do before lunch. Most notes apps treat each one as a new note, so after a month you have two hundred untitled notes and no idea which one holds the Wi-Fi password.

The fix is not a better filing system. It is fewer places to file. If you only ever have a handful of notes, each with a clear purpose, you always know where to write and where to look. This is the same idea as a paper notebook with a few tabbed sections, or a desk with a tray for each kind of paper.

A seven-note setup

Seven is enough to cover most of life and few enough to hold in your head. Here is a setup that works for most people. Change the names to suit you.

The Inbox note is the safety valve. When you don't know where something goes, put it there. Once a week, move each line to the right note or delete it.

Daily and weekly habits

1. Morning: write today's list. Three to five items in the Today note, as a checklist. Tick them off as you go.
2. During the day: capture, don't sort. Write into the obvious note, or into Inbox if you're not sure. Speed matters more than neatness.
3. Once a week: empty the Inbox. Five minutes is usually enough. Move, merge or delete every line.
4. Once a month: prune Ideas and Work. Anything you will want in a year belongs in a proper notes app, document or calendar, not a scratchpad.

Doing it in Seven Dots

Seven Dots is built around exactly this idea: seven coloured dots along the top, and each dot is one note that is always there. There are no folders and no list of notes to scroll.

• Switch notes by tapping a dot, swiping the note sideways, or sliding your thumb along the dots. On a keyboard, Ctrl or ⌘ plus 1 to 7 jumps straight to a dot.
• Name a dot by double-tapping it, so "Shopping" is always the blue one.
• Plain or rich text. Switch a dot to Rich for headings, bold, lists, checklists, quotes, links and simple tables. Tick every item on a checklist and the dot celebrates.
• Move text between notes. Select some text and drag it onto another dot to move it (hold Alt to copy). This makes the weekly Inbox clear-out quick.
• Lock a dot to make it read only, which suits a Reference note you don't want to change by accident.
• Reminders. The bell sets a one-off or daily reminder for a dot. It rings while Seven Dots is open in a tab; for anything important, use "Add to my calendar" as well.
• Quick capture. Settings has a bookmarklet that sends selected text, or the page title and link, from any web page into the dot you choose.
• Share a note as a card image or as a reader link. The link carries the note itself, so nothing is uploaded.

Seven Dots is free, with no account and no Pro upgrade. Notes stay in your browser and work offline. Use Back up in Settings now and then to save a file you can restore later.

Tips

• Keep colours consistent. Once green means Today, your eye finds it without reading.
• Put the date at the top of Today if you like a quick record of what you got done.
• Use one note for anything sensitive and keep it short. A scratchpad is not a password manager.
• Leave one dot empty for a project that comes up suddenly, such as a trip or a move.

Common mistakes

• Making a new note for every thought. That's how the pile of untitled notes starts.
• Giving one note two jobs. "Work and shopping" becomes neither.
• Never clearing the Inbox. It then becomes the only note, and the system stops working.
• Keeping important records only in a scratchpad. Move them somewhere permanent and back up.