Good stuff....
This issue is the one that I have been trying to refine. I became a Franklin Covey user in 1995 and in 2003 began migrating my time management and organization to my computer at work using Outlook.
For the most part, when an item comes in (phone call, voice mail, colleague comes by the office, or some other request or idea comes up) I record a new Journal note in Outlook. If I immediately know it will become a project, I record it as a Task and categorize it and maybe make a few notes about the next action. But typically, I don't have much time to complete tasks at the moment they present.
I liken the Journal to the right page of the Franklin binder. One of my daily Outlook tasks is to "Review Previous Day Journal Entries" Yes, I'm really a goof...I need reminders like this or I'll forget to do it and it is so much like the old "Planning and Solitude" of Franklin. I use the Advanced find, journal entries created "yesterday", or on or after a certain day if I was out of the office for more than one day. And also with the "Find" capability in Outlook...if it never made it to a task, later on I can still "Find" it and see what action or information I captured at the time it was recorded.
If I didn't resolve it in 2 minutes the previous day, then I task it. I simply drag the Journal item over to the Task icon, make a few notes, record the next action and set a follow-up date. I use categories to, but most stuff remains in the "uncategorized" category.
This all works beautifully when I'm sitting at my desk, but the problem was elsewhere (meeting, hallway, in the staff area, at home or church.) I have a Palm, but I hate writing on it. And I miss my Franklin Binder; it was like a little security blanket... My idea was the same as what has come up several times in this thread. The 5x8 spiral notebook in a nice cover. Have one available (just one at at time) anywhere I am. I throw it in my work portfolio or in my purse on weekends. I incorporate reviewing it with the "Review Previous Journal Entries" from the Journal in Outlook. This way it stays on one computer when I sync it to my Palm.
I don't mind typing in Outlook from the written notes because I type really fast. (One skill God gave me that makes up for a whole slough of other shortcomings!) The notebooks with perforated sheets are great. They can be torn out and put in a project folder or given to a staff member or colleague. By putting dates just before the first entry of a new day on the pages that aren't torn out, I can reference in the electronic record back to the notebook if really necessary. (Doesn't happen much- remember the 5/6-2...yea, yea, I know...old Franklin throwback stuff) These can be kept for long term retention with the dates on them.
If I remember something driving on the road, I leave a message on my work voice mail and then make a journal note or task while reviewing voice mail.