To each his own. I went the opposite route, now, I don't even have a pen and paper on my desk. I still carry a pen in my bag for signing documents and stuff, bu

To each his own. I went the opposite route, now, I don't even have a pen and paper on my desk. I still carry a pen in my bag for signing documents and stuff, but I don't remember the last time I scribbled something on paper. I usually take notes or lay my thought using a text editor, I find it easier to edit, manipulate, and store. I occasionally use a graphics tablet or my phone with a stylus when I need more than text (ex: drawing schematics), essentially like paper, but more editable and I can save it as a file. But if you find that pen and paper works best for you, go for it. Maybe one reason I went the opposite route is that the author likes to think in advance before going for the implementation, that's a top down approach. Mine is very bottom up, I go straight to coding, sometime even before reading the specs. It feels like putting ideas into code makes me think more clearly. I can always scrap that code later, I often do, it is cheap when things are just getting started. And pen and paper is not really suitable for that kind of rapid prototyping.