4 ms·

I think everyone kind of feels like paper has some benefit, but it's mostly like excercise. Short term it's a hassle, and whatever you're doing will take time

I think everyone kind of feels like paper has some benefit, but it's mostly like excercise. Short term it's a hassle, and whatever you're doing will take time to see results, and... the phone is right there, frictionless, already in your hand. Plus, to find motivation to use pen and paper, you have to have a project, which isn't just work(That is often inherently digital) which you care about enough to use high-effort methods. I love the idea of using pen and paper.... but... pen and paper are more objects to manage that can be lost and add to the clutter which is currently one of the bigger sources of stress in my life.

bayindirh 3y ago
While to each is their own, I don't think so. I have spent and still spend a lot of time on digital document and task management systems. I have considerable note and project troves in Evernote and Pagico. In reality, long term memory provided by Pagico is a great complement to pen and paper workflow of me, because I bake longer term plans into Pagico, and use that tool everyday, too. The phone is not frictionless, because at the end tap/click depth is much more when using a digital device when compared to pen and paper. I always put stalls into my mind flow, because you need to at least add some keyboard shortcuts or taps while streaming your knowledge to something digital. Paper doesn't have that kind of friction. Just dump it down. Markdown provides some good middle ground, but it's not completely intrerrupt-free either. A small A5 or 17x24cm notebook doesn't take a place in your daily backpack, neither a good, run of the mill flight-safe roller. Digital organization has its perks and uses which can't be and shouldn't be ignored when the data volume one manages passes a certain threshold, but pen and paper is irreplaceable in my mind. Because the uninterrupted workflow and the pacing it provides works as a great regulatory aid for me. It doesn't run out of battery, has much faster random access, do not tax my eyes much, and last but not the least, prevents carpal tunnel.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  The times when I actually bother getting up off my butt and picking up a pen, I do notice a lot of productivity.. almost entirely because you can't click away to Facebook every minute, and it doesn't show you anything that reminds me of the fact I could be scrolling dumb crap. I spend a lot of time thinking about each individual letter and stroke to have any chance of legibility though, and was very slow even when I was practicing heavily as a teen(I heard GEDs were subconsciously scored based on penmanship, even though they're not supposed to, and wanted to give myself an advantage). There's also a small security issue, Google can probably read Google Keep, but people I actually know can read paper if I leave it behind, so I wouldn't want to use it for any kind of private journal, unless it was something that never left the house. It can also be lost and there's no instant sync, plus there's no reminder feature, so I wouldn't want to use it for anything critical, that's just making myself a single point of failure in my own life, even if the paper itself is reliable. The productivity gains are noticable enough that it definitely does seem like there's real value there though, despite the extra work. If I get stuck on a problem, I pull out my Boogie Board(Not quite paper but great for throwaway notes). I also like to use my A5 binder notebook in meetings, especially if I'm new to a group, or it's a casual discussion that's not highly technical, almost as part of my wardrobe. It gives transparency that I'm actually paying attention, not scrolling Hacker News, as opposed to a screen only I can see, and it doesn't break immersion if we're talking about a project that doesn't involve tech, like building something that's meant to feel old fashioned.

bayindirh 3y ago

While to each is their own, I don't think so. I have spent and still spend a lot of time on digital document and task management systems. I have considerable note and project troves in Evernote and Pagico. In reality, long term memory provided by Pagico is a great complement to pen and paper workflow of me, because I bake longer term plans into Pagico, and use that tool everyday, too. The phone is not frictionless, because at the end tap/click depth is much more when using a digital device when compared to pen and paper. I always put stalls into my mind flow, because you need to at least add some keyboard shortcuts or taps while streaming your knowledge to something digital. Paper doesn't have that kind of friction. Just dump it down. Markdown provides some good middle ground, but it's not completely intrerrupt-free either. A small A5 or 17x24cm notebook doesn't take a place in your daily backpack, neither a good, run of the mill flight-safe roller. Digital organization has its perks and uses which can't be and shouldn't be ignored when the data volume one manages passes a certain threshold, but pen and paper is irreplaceable in my mind. Because the uninterrupted workflow and the pacing it provides works as a great regulatory aid for me. It doesn't run out of battery, has much faster random access, do not tax my eyes much, and last but not the least, prevents carpal tunnel.

eternityforest 3y ago
The times when I actually bother getting up off my butt and picking up a pen, I do notice a lot of productivity.. almost entirely because you can't click away to Facebook every minute, and it doesn't show you anything that reminds me of the fact I could be scrolling dumb crap. I spend a lot of time thinking about each individual letter and stroke to have any chance of legibility though, and was very slow even when I was practicing heavily as a teen(I heard GEDs were subconsciously scored based on penmanship, even though they're not supposed to, and wanted to give myself an advantage). There's also a small security issue, Google can probably read Google Keep, but people I actually know can read paper if I leave it behind, so I wouldn't want to use it for any kind of private journal, unless it was something that never left the house. It can also be lost and there's no instant sync, plus there's no reminder feature, so I wouldn't want to use it for anything critical, that's just making myself a single point of failure in my own life, even if the paper itself is reliable. The productivity gains are noticable enough that it definitely does seem like there's real value there though, despite the extra work. If I get stuck on a problem, I pull out my Boogie Board(Not quite paper but great for throwaway notes). I also like to use my A5 binder notebook in meetings, especially if I'm new to a group, or it's a casual discussion that's not highly technical, almost as part of my wardrobe. It gives transparency that I'm actually paying attention, not scrolling Hacker News, as opposed to a screen only I can see, and it doesn't break immersion if we're talking about a project that doesn't involve tech, like building something that's meant to feel old fashioned.