I have no religion when it comes to shop notebooks. Not a type, nor paper or tech. But use “some thing” because not having anything at all will be a problem.

Your workflow will determine how the next step occurs. You may be prototyping something, and so there’s no notes to guide you. But at some point you will get to “nice” and you’ll want to build it “for real”. That would be the moment to take detailed notes. If you are working in CAD or a drawing app, it might be worthwhile to print out shop drawing and scribble some additional notes as you work. Etc. But these “sources of truth” are very helpful when questions and problems arise.

If I had one rule (snicker) it would be that your scribble paper, notebook, etc. assuming it is atoms not electrons should be graph paper. It was invented for just this sort of thing, take advantage.

Matt Kenny suggests the following…

• Be as detailed as you possibly can. The more detail, the less work you’ll need to do to make sense of what’s written down.
• Write in simple, clear statements and equations. A shop notebook is not a Faulkner novel or a Fields-Medal-worthy mathematical treatise.
• Write down: dimensions, notes about materials, things you discovered that made construction easier, problems you encountered and how you solved them, and anything else that’s important to you.
• Clearly identify which piece of furniture a note belongs to. A year from now you probably won’t remember.
• Do not worry about how it reads or looks. If it makes sense to you and you can go back and make sense of it a month later, that’s all that matters. You will develop a style, organizing principles, etc. as you continue to work and fill up notebooks.