u/Both-Mushroom1847

Hi all,

I use Notability for lecture notes, with handwritten notes synced to audio recordings. I know that during playback, Notability can replay the handwriting in sync with the audio (“Note Replay”).

What I’m trying to figure out is this:

Is there any way to export or save that replay as an actual video file (for example MP4), where the handwriting appears progressively while the synced audio plays in the background?

Basically, I want to turn a Notability note + recording into a video showing the writing process in real time, not just export the audio separately.

Has anyone found a workaround for this? Maybe screen recording, export tricks, or another app/tool?

Thanks!

Hey all,

I’m an early-stage PhD student in Econ (mostly empirical work with a bit of theory too), and I’m starting to realize that my entire research workflow is kind of broken. I feel like I’m wasting mental energy on organization instead of actual research.

Everything is scattered, papers, datasets, code, notes, across random folders, Downloads, Desktop, Google Drive, Overleaf projects, sometimes even different versions of the same thing in multiple places. I keep re-downloading papers because I can’t find them. Same for data or code I know I used before.

My laptop storage fills up fast, but more than that, I feel like this chaos is slowing down my thinking and progress. I spend way too much time just looking for things or reconstructing stuff I already did.

The worst part is that I’m aware of it, but I keep telling myself “I’ll organize it later” and I never do, so it just keeps compounding.

At this point I’m wondering if I should just stop everything for a few days or a week and rebuild a clean system from scratch.

So I’m curious:
Did you go through this early in your PhD?
What actually worked for you to fix it, not just in theory but in practice?
How do you organize papers vs code vs data vs writing?
Any tools that genuinely made a difference and that you could please suggest will be greatly appreciated.

Would really appreciate any concrete systems or habits that actually worked for you, especially from people doing empirical work where everything is interconnected.

Thanks!

Hey all,

I’m an early-stage PhD student in Econ (mostly empirical work with a bit of theory too), and I’m starting to realize that my entire research workflow is kind of broken. I feel like I’m wasting mental energy on organization instead of actual research.

Everything is scattered, papers, datasets, code, notes, across random folders, Downloads, Desktop, Google Drive, Overleaf projects, sometimes even different versions of the same thing in multiple places. I keep re-downloading papers because I can’t find them. Same for data or code I know I used before.

My laptop storage fills up fast, but more than that, I feel like this chaos is slowing down my thinking and progress. I spend way too much time just looking for things or reconstructing stuff I already did.

The worst part is that I’m aware of it, but I keep telling myself “I’ll organize it later” and I never do, so it just keeps compounding.

At this point I’m wondering if I should just stop everything for a few days or a week and rebuild a clean system from scratch.

So I’m curious:
Did you go through this early in your PhD?
What actually worked for you to fix it, not just in theory but in practice?
How do you organize papers vs code vs data vs writing?
Any tools that genuinely made a difference and that you could please suggest will be greatly appreciated.

Would really appreciate any concrete systems or habits that actually worked for you, especially from people doing empirical work where everything is interconnected.

Thanks!