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Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

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Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#71

Post by ectopod »

NaN1352 wrote: post #54

I would love to. The most cumbersome thing about notebooks, even larger ones like A3, is 1) they dont lie flat, and 2) even if (eg. rings) when I want to write on the left page, my hand hits the "spine" between the pages and its not comfortable writing. When I used paper I got used to have a stack of A4, put a title in one corner, I?d keep them on my left beside the keyboard. There are nice a4 in 4 light pastel color…

I use the right hand pages only. When I get to the back I flip the book over and, starting from the back, continue using the right hand pages that were formerly on the left.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#72

Post by reportgunner »

sdevonoes wrote: post #62

Am I the only one that does write down stuff in paper to realize that I never come back to it at a later point? In fact I just throw away all my notes after a few weeks. The only reason I write down stuff is because: it "liberates" my mind. I can't keep all the details in my brain. Example: designing a system. I can see the system in my mind but at some point I need to dump it to paper, so I can keep thinking about i…

I am the same. I need to write things down by hand to remember them.

Once it is written down i don't need the paper any more.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#73

Post by reportgunner »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #34

Lately I've been writing a lot in paper notepads and I've favored pens over pencils. I don't remember where I heard this idea originally, but there's something about using a pen which makes you grow a bit more comfortable with accepting that errors and mistakes will always happen but you can take action later on to correct those mistakes. With a pencil you often erase your mistakes and pretend they never happened. Yo…

I second using pens over pencils. What I love about paper is that it's hard to delete things you might find useful later.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#74

Post by ta988 »

reportgunner wrote: post #73
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #34

Lately I've been writing a lot in paper notepads and I've favored pens over pencils. I don't remember where I heard this idea originally, but there's something about using a pen which makes you grow a bit more comfortable with accepting that errors and mistakes will always happen but you can take action later on to correct those mistakes. With a pencil you often erase your mistakes and pretend they never happened. Yo…

I second using pens over pencils. What I love about paper is that it's hard to delete things you might find useful later.

Same here, plus pencil smears on pages over time if the notebook id kept in a bag or in movement

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#75

Post by kstrauser »

I keep thinking I’ll like paper, but I just don’t. A few years ago I started keeping a daily journal: not so much a diary with today I feel… but a record like changed the van’s oil. Drove the kid to camp. Called Mom.. [0]

I was using Drafts on my iPhone as a kind of bullet journal, with an action group I wrote. [1] After a year of this, articles like this one convinced me to switch to a paper journal and to get a nice fountain pen. [2] I've done this for about a year and a half now, and when I fill up this current notebook next month, that's it. I'm going back to digital.

Turns out, pen and paper is vastly inferior to digital in every way I care about. Other people love it and that's awesome, but I can't escape the fact that I hate handwriting stuff, and I often cut my thoughts short so I can quit scribbling. Worse, the analog notes aren't actionable. My Drafts workflow turns my day's worth of bullet-style entries into a set of digital diary entries, new calendar events, and tasks in my task manager. I'm already carrying my iPhone with me everywhere [3], so I don't have to remember to drag something else along. If I'm jogging and think of something, I can say "hey Siri, remind me to..." and it makes a note for me without me having to pause and jot it down. Paper seems nice for impromptu drawings, but since keeping a paper journal, I've literally never drawn something in it.

For me, for my workflow, digital is vastly superior. Paper has its strengths, but none of them apply to how I want to use it. I mention all this for the benefit of other people reading this article and feeling vaguely guilty for not toting a paper notebook with them all the time. I think the important part is the note taking itself, not the medium they're recorded with.

[0] As an aside, this is enough for me to remember that day when I look back at it later. It’d be useless for anyone else reading it, but I write for me, not for a hypothetical person who gives a care about what I was doing in 2021.

[1] It got kinda popular: https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Sd

[2] Rhodia Webnotebook A5. Lamy Safari, Noodler’s Baystate Blue ink.

[3] None of this applies while on camping trips. I take a paper notebook with me to write stuff down because I don't have to charge it.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#76

Post by ta988 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #59
nunodonato wrote: post #11

How about a middle ground? I've been looking into the new generation of eink devices that are great for notetaking. Remarkable etc Best of both worlds and no more dead trees

How many notes do you actually take? It takes about 113kg co2 to produce an iPad[1] and other tablets may produce more as much as 200kg. That's roughly equivalent to the emissions from producing 2000-6000 sheets of paper [2]. But we are not including the running electricity emissions of of the Remarkable, plus the co2 emissions of their cloud service. Plus electronics produce a lot dirtier pollution on disposal than…

Plus paper is recyclable

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#77

Post by NikolaNovak »

kstrauser wrote: post #75

I keep thinking I’ll like paper, but I just don’t. A few years ago I started keeping a daily journal: not so much a diary with today I feel… but a record like changed the van’s oil. Drove the kid to camp. Called Mom. . [0] I was using Drafts on my iPhone as a kind of bullet journal, with an action group I wrote. [1] After a year of this, articles like this one convinced me to switch to a paper journal and to get a ni…

The only advantage of paper notebooks I've seen so far is that in certain specific corporate settings, you'll be seen as more professional/serious/"executive".

Otherwise, for me, if you want to do art, then sure, paper like any medium is a valid matter of stylistic choice. And I fully understand the tactile and visual pleasure of choosing and touching and interacting with a finely crafted physical product. But if you want to do practical / functional, digital beats paper the way paper beat clay tablets. Just the sheer convenience of having all of my notes and tasks, EVER, organized effortlessly, on any device I happen to be near, is a pure slam dunk. Shareability, automation, reminders, analysis, updates, backups... list goes on.

(I'll still be more excited to receive a nice paper letter than a quick text, of course :)

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#78

Post by xena »

NaN1352 wrote: post #54

I would love to. The most cumbersome thing about notebooks, even larger ones like A3, is 1) they dont lie flat, and 2) even if (eg. rings) when I want to write on the left page, my hand hits the "spine" between the pages and its not comfortable writing. When I used paper I got used to have a stack of A4, put a title in one corner, I?d keep them on my left beside the keyboard. There are nice a4 in 4 light pastel color…

The ones I use are like 4 inches by 5.5 inches. Really tiny. Easy to deal with.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#79

Post by coffeefirst »

sdevonoes wrote: post #62

Am I the only one that does write down stuff in paper to realize that I never come back to it at a later point? In fact I just throw away all my notes after a few weeks. The only reason I write down stuff is because: it "liberates" my mind. I can't keep all the details in my brain. Example: designing a system. I can see the system in my mind but at some point I need to dump it to paper, so I can keep thinking about i…

Totally. This is the main insight from the bullet journal people that the author seems to have reached in her own way. None of this stuff needs to live forever, it's just about managing short term memory and cognitive load.

Re: Using Paper for Everyday Tasks

#80

Post by throwanem »

kstrauser wrote: post #75

I keep thinking I’ll like paper, but I just don’t. A few years ago I started keeping a daily journal: not so much a diary with today I feel… but a record like changed the van’s oil. Drove the kid to camp. Called Mom. . [0] I was using Drafts on my iPhone as a kind of bullet journal, with an action group I wrote. [1] After a year of this, articles like this one convinced me to switch to a paper journal and to get a ni…

I can and happily will second the A5 Rhodia Webnotebook recommendation. They're small enough for convenience, big enough for depth, sturdy enough to stand up to prolonged and heavy use, and full of beautiful Clairefontaine paper on which it's a positive pleasure to write. I've been using them for my diary for years now, and expect to go on doing so as long as I can still get them.

(Fwiw, I like a Decimo better than a Safari, although probably not as a first fountain pen - you want to start with a steel nib, which will be more forgiving as you learn a lighter hand, and the Decimo is both gold-nibbed and fairly expensive among pens that aren't coded "luxury". That said, if you're looking for a change, a Decimo is also light and comfortable to use, and durable in real-world use; I carry mine in my shirt pocket, and the only thing so far to give it trouble was a Labrador who was very excited to see me again for the first time in some years. Some folks do have grip trouble with the pocket clip, but all I can say is it's never bothered me, and the sheer understated elegance of the pen's design - in every way the opposite of the "look at me!" that a lot of more conventional pens convey - is a pleasure in itself, besides.)

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