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As your day progresses, you need to stay on top of new things that come your way while keeping yourself focused on working through the stuff already on your plate.  That’s where good notetaking skills come into play.  (If you’re not already taking notes, you need to start.  Seems obvious, but some people just don’t take notes at all – and their productivity suffers as a result.)

Here’s 3 ways to get you taking – and making – better notes:

1. Use shorthand that you understand.  The art of shorthand is somewhat lost thanks to digital voice recorders and email, but when you do use a pen and paper to jot stuff down, don’t be too articulate or long-winded.  You’re using these as reference points, not handing them in as-is.  Speed up the process by using shorthand that you understand so you can expand upon them when you’re got the time to do so.
2. Use software.  There’s a wide range of software solutions for this.  Some sync with your computer and mobile device, some take your voice and turn it directly to text.  It’s nice to have a central place where all of your notes can be in case you ever need to refer to them as well.  While it may not be your primary notetaking method, it’s not a bad idea to have it handy regardless.
3. Transfer them to your productivity system regularly.  Notes on their own are not enough.  You need to categorize them and integrate them with the items already built into your productivity system of choice.  Otherwise they’re just going to end up out of your mind and, ultimately, out of your control.

Taking notes at all is the first step.  Better notetaking comes from wanting to give them more value when it comes to your path to being more productive.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of: you probably don’t write perfect JavaScript the first time. While debugging JavaScript is usually done manually, today’s quick tip will teach you how to use JSLint, a tool for catching JavaScript bugs. Think of it as spell-check for JavaScript.

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Screencast

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What is JSLint?

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a Lint program:

In computer programming, lint was the name originally given to a particular program that flagged some suspicious and non-portable constructs (likely to be bugs) in C language source code. The term is now applied generically to tools that flag suspicious usage in software written in any computer language.

JSLint is one such program for JavaScript, written by Douglas Crockford (of course). You hand it your JavaScript and it let’s you know what to fix.

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How do you use it?

After you head over the JSLint Website, the first step is to choose the practices you want to enforce; you can choose the Crockford-recommend settings by clicking the “Good Parts” button.

Then, paste in your JavaScript and hit the JSLint button. If you’re code is less than perfect, you’ll get a list of errors to fix.

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Before JSLint

(function () {

	var anObject = {};
	var anElem = document.getElementById("wrap");
	var aString = "This is a string"

	if (aString === "This is a string") {
		anotherString = aString;
	}

	function person(name, age) {
		this.name = name;
		this.age  = age;
	}

	var aPerson = new person("John", 25);

}());

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After JSLint

/*jslint white: true, browser: true, onevar: true, undef: true, nomen: true, eqeqeq: true, plusplus: true, bitwise: true, regexp: true, newcap: true, immed: true, strict: true */
"use strict";
(function () {

	var anObject = {}, aPerson, anotherString,
		anElem = document.getElementById("wrap"),
		aString = "This is a string";

	if (aString === "This is a string") {
		anotherString = aString;
	}

	function Person(name, age) {
		this.name = name;
		this.age  = age;
	}

	aPerson = new Person("John", 25);

}());

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Where can I learn more about JSLint?

This page explains in depth the concepts behind JSLint. Thanks for reading and watching!