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Organizing daily notes

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Aimless:
I've just (once again) spent a few hours and a great deal of emotional energy going through literally hundreds of folded pieces of paper in search of an A6-sized treasure containing notes from a seminar that are crucial to the resolution of a research-paper that's been the bane of my frickin' existence for a very long time. Although I was finally successful, and am relieved, this episode demonstrates once again the total inadequacy of my approach to note-taking and organisation, and I'd like some tips on approaches that may be better.

My approach is borne out of a need to take notes very quickly and very often over the course of a day (every day), some for short-term use and some for long-term use. Dedicated notebooks fill up extremely quickly and are therefore unsustainable. Taking digital notes on my phone is too slow, even with helpful apps like Swiftkey. Moreover, the phone has difficulties with unorthodox abbreviations and unusual terminology. For these reason, I use the phone inconsistently, and so it isn't a reliable method for me.

I think I may have more success with a phone that lets me write down notes eg. with a stylus and that automatically stores and processes those notes via a suitable services such as evernote, onenote etc. Unfortunately, phones with this sort of functionality seem to be so large as to be unusable by my tiny hands and unsuitable for my tiny pockets.

Whatcha reckon? And what's your approach?

hedgie:
I'm a little old-fashioned.  I tend to lug a laptop around for course notes, and use the voice recorder on my phone if I want to speak a quick personal notes.  My typing speed and endurance are far greater than I can write by hand anyhow[1].  When typing, I tend to just use a text-editor and write in LaTeX, so I don't have to worry about formatting, just content, and I can work with logic symbols easily.  Yeah, it means that I'm carrying this heavy thing around, and had to learn a new markup language, but the few hours I spent running through tutorials on the basics have paid off in time and frustration saved.

[1]  I have pretty bad RSIs in both wrists.

nekowafer:
What about a small binder, like a daily planner type of thing? You can buy a bunch of paper packs that are the right size, and refill as necessary. Then you can get a little plastic organizer (or make your own) to then file those notes away.

Papersatan:
I have struggled with this my whole life.  I have trouble reading my writing, I have trouble keeping track of places to take notes, and then the notes I took.  When I was in middleschool I actually wore a small notebook around my neck because otherwise I could not keep track of where and when I needed to be with what (I can't believe noone thought to screen me for ADHD back then :/ ) 

This past year when I worked 32 hours a week and took my final classes in grad school I got the closest I have ever had to a good system.  I use Microsoft OneNote, This is my tool only because I already owned it, I'm not endorsing it over similar systems.

The architecture of the software divides your notes into "notebooks" "sections" and "pages" pages scroll down and can go on as long as you need.  I keep one notebook for work, one for school and one for other crap.  In each notebook a section for each project at work, each class and each life thing that needs keeping track of.  You can sync your notebooks across multiple devices, including mobile devices (though I never did), which lets you read your notes and enter new ones. 

The pages work almost like a collage, you can click anywhere and it make a text box where you can type, you can draw you can drop a file into it or an email, or an image.  This was great for me because I don't take good linear notes, I write a few words here and arrows and a chart and so on, and so this lets me take notes in the same way I would on paper.

 I agree that trying to enter notes on a mobile device is a pain and I have never masted it for more than quick reminders, but you can take a picture of your handwritten notes and upload them.  I also found that it made it easy for me to type a note next to that image later in the day, to make sure I knew what it said, or what it was about. 

This was the only semester I went to study and actually had notes to do it from.  In addition, when I left my co-op in May, I was able to type up notes for my replacement because I had everything saved. The only struggle, like every system, is remembering to use it.  I had to set up a time each day to update it with any postits laying around my desk, or any emails I had sent myself with images of notes or whatever, but once I got into the habit, that didn't take much time, way less time than my other searches for "that piece of paper that is in the pocket of whatever dress I was wearing on Tuesday, or was it Wednesday?"

Mlle Germain:
I find it funny that hedgie calls using a laptop and Latex old-fashioned.

My really old-fashioned approach that does not need any technical equipment and works everywhere: I take hand-written notes on everything - even most of my revision notes for exams, when I have time to write. I've only recently started writing up some of them in latex for long-term use. My brain can remember hand-written content much better and I'm still quicker like that as well (especially when it comes to sketches and diagrams).
I then use a folder like this with lots of compartments to organise all my notes by content and importance. When I attend lectures, most of the compartments are for the different subjects, but I also have some for organisational things. The folder is easy to carry around with me everywhere; I just need to empty it every few months. At this point it is good to have more folders at home for different categories to file old notes into.
With my notes for uni, this system has worked very well and I was always able to find everything again, even practice calculations or proofs from a few semesters before. I have one huge folder for each semester, with different compartments within, so I always know where everything is.
Since I usually just pile important papers (like bills etc. I mean the ones that are not connected to my studies/ work) unsorted onto my desk and, when the pile gets too big, into one "Important papers" folder, I'm not quite as fast finding those again - although I usually find them in the end. I bet I could be better with those if I used the same system as for my uni notes.

Edit: The same system that I described for my lectures also worked while I was doing a research project. I had one compartment for papers I was currently reading with annotations written on them or stuck in between, one for notes taken from books and one for my own calculations. Since you can not always completely separate these, they sometimes got mixed up, but all in all, that worked well, too.
Also, I never throw away scrap paper with notes/ calculations unless I am absolutely sure that I have written down a neat version and know where that is.

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