I'm sure many of you have seen this (it came out in January of 2018), but it's an enjoyable read, from NYT: https://nyti.ms/2E3SIUq

I suspect it will resonate with many here. The overview:

"Planners typically serve one of five functions."

- Strict scheduling.
- Goal planning.
- Artistic planning (they seem to mean doodling)
- Memory keeping
- Bullet journaling


That article also urges the reader to check out the Traveler's Notebook. A Japanese product, it does look beguiling.
https://www.travelers-company.com/products/trnote/about

If anyone uses it, I'd like to hear more about it.

Years ago, before smartphones, I bought a leather binder, then designed all my own pages. With tabs, it was actually a delight to me, and did more to organize my life than my phone does now, probably.

I have been using Sharp Electronic Notebook (https://enote.neocities.org/ since early this year and it's a nice balance between physical and digital to me.

I like the size of it (about the same size as a 6 inch Kindle) and I can have multiple notebooks at hand without a bulk size (easy to separate personal and work related notes). It does not have OCR but I can export images for backup, though most of the notes are fleeting notes that should be reviewed, parsed and discarded. The interface is all Japanese but it's quite simple to use.

I will definitely recommend it if you can stand the defects – the screen is reflective and it does not have backlight. It is also hard to beat the price ($120 to get the latest version from www.amazon.co.jp with international shipping).

I've come to the conclusion that it's best to plan digitally and reflect analog.

Plans are for the future. Our plans often need to change. Trying to be flexible with your planning in a paper system quickly gets quite messy. The more complex your plans are, the more true this is. If you live a simple life with few moving parts, then this may not be true for you. But for me, this just doesn't fit. Instead I use org-mode (or whatever todo list I'm trying out) and a calendar to do this.

Reflection is for the past. The past doesn't change. This goes well with paper. I currently have two journals, one for thoughts another that I use as my worklog where I track what I actually do with my time and days (which ends up being a tremendous focus tool).

The side product of this is that I end up producing artifacts of my thoughts and work that I are of high quality that I'll want to hold on to forever. Fill a journal & see how you feel about it. Fill a text file, see how you feel about it. Analog artifacts seem to hold more emotional & psychological value. Years into the future I'll be fine not knowing what I was *planning* to do with a particular day or week, but I will be happy to know what I actually *did*.

That's a welcome insight. Thanks!

Steve

thouqht wrote:

I've come to the conclusion that it's best to plan digitally and reflect
analog.

Plans are for the future. Our plans often need to change. Trying to be
flexible with your planning in a paper system quickly gets quite messy.
The more complex your plans are, the more true this is. If you live a
simple life with few moving parts, then this may not be true for you.
But for me, this just doesn't fit. Instead I use org-mode (or whatever
todo list I'm trying out) and a calendar to do this.

Reflection is for the past. The past doesn't change. This goes well with
paper. I currently have two journals, one for thoughts another that I
use as my worklog where I track what I actually do with my time and days
(which ends up being a tremendous focus tool).

The side product of this is that I end up producing artifacts of my
thoughts and work that I are of high quality that I'll want to hold on
to forever. Fill a journal & see how you feel about it. Fill a text
file, see how you feel about it. Analog artifacts seem to hold more
emotional & psychological value. Years into the future I'll be fine not
knowing what I was *planning* to do with a particular day or week, but I
will be happy to know what I actually *did*.

Nice info @jasler -- I enjoy my Traveler's notebook a lot. And my micro index cards.

Good thoughts, @thought -- thanks for that.

Back in the pre-smart anything days, a Day Timer was the premium paper agenda product. Beside the core paper agenda, there were lots of fiddly add-ons. You couldn't go to a meeting or an office without everyone pulling out their Day Timers. The company is still around. As are Rolodexes. Nowadays, if someone gives me a business card, I pocket it and throw it away later, since it's almost impossible to meet with someone and not already know their email and contact info.

Paul Korm wrote:

Nowadays, if someone gives me a business card, I pocket it
and throw it away later,

Probably wise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY

I've been using a Traveler's Notebook for a couple of years and it works well for me. It's compact enough to have with me all the time, but the pages are big enough to be useful for serious note-taking (meetings, plans and the like).

There's a massive choice of inserts - paper weight, number of pages, ruled, squared and so on (if you're looking for a displacement activity, just go to Etsy and start looking at all the paper - I guarantee hours of wasted time). Apart from the aesthetics, this makes the TN ae to flex according to your own preferences.

That said, I don't imagine I'm any more effective than when I used a Moleskine.

Paul Korm wrote:

You couldn't go to a meeting or an office without everyone
pulling out their Day Timers. The company is still around. As are
Rolodexes. Nowadays, if someone gives me a business card, I pocket it
and throw it away later, since it's almost impossible to meet with
someone and not already know their email and contact info.

I rather miss the days when everybody would pass business cards over the table at the start of meetings, mainly because I have very little ability to remember names, and I could use them surreptitiously to drop names in the right places during the meeting. But there are still lots of times I need to use a card because I don't know the people there and they don't know me - exhibitions, conferences, or even just to provide contact details when ordering in a shop. It's probably nice and easy to just say your name when you have a nice short German name in Germany. For the past 35 years I've lived in countries when my short, but Scottish, name, seems to cause all sorts of problems for spelling or pronunciation - just passing them a card helps a lot.

What to do with the information later .... there's the rub. I always thought Rolodexes were badly designed. I've never settled on a way of storing contact details, digitally or on paper. I just seem to muddle through.

Ha! I've never seen that film, but that's a great scene. I wonder how they coaxed Bruce Wayne to be in it.

Beck wrote:

Paul Korm wrote:
>Nowadays, if someone gives me a business card, I pocket it
>and throw it away later,

Probably wise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Ha! I've never seen that film, but that's a great scene. I wonder how
they coaxed Bruce Wayne to be in it.

At the time of that scene (2000), the most recent Bruce Wayne was George Clooney (1997).

It's a creepy film with subtleties on rewatching. That said, I haven't seen it in years and have doubts that it's aged well.

thouqht wrote:

I've come to the conclusion that it's best to plan digitally and reflect
analog.

I agree that there is something about the digital vs. analog difference, and it may also have something to do with the typing vs. handwriting distinction, and the difference in the size of the medium (doing brainstorming on an A3 size paper or a scroll of wrapping paper vs. a digital space where your view is limited to the frame of the screen, despite the fact of the digital space being unlimited or zoomable), and the ability to focus (no distractions with paper, while easy to be distracted within the digital space), but I haven't quite been able to figure out a pattern.

One thing I did notice though that it helps to switch from one medium to the other if one gets stuck. So it may be more about just switching frames than the inherent qualities of the medium.

Having said that, all my recent attempts to go back to analog largely failed, as the messiness that results from reordering things on paper and the inability to easily access past notes from multiple locations forces me to go back to digital every time.

Investing in a stylus-enabled Chromebook also didn't turn out to be a panacea, as when the going gets tough I forget that option is even there.

But I do have a nagging feeling that allowing myself to be pressured to adopt the speed dictated by modern work (the need to solve problems by email and construct digital artefacts on the fly) I am missing something, and that reverting to pen and paper and slowing things down would lead to higher quality, more valuable and meaningful outcomes.

Maybe some of it is just nostalgia. (Coming across the Day Timer system was a revelation and I did enjoy using it before digital devices became portable.)

There are only two things I use paper notebooks for these days: to take notes in meetings (because it's still quicker), and to write my mediation journal at the end of the day (where I don't want to be distracted by a device again).

The American Psycho scene is brilliant and hillarious! Didn't remember it at all...

Dr Andus wrote:

Maybe some of it is just nostalgia. (Coming across the Day Timer system
was a revelation and I did enjoy using it before digital devices became
portable.)

Maybe, but I also think there's something to be said for challenging the idea that we're capable and/or satisfied with the fast pace of most current work environments.

There are only two things I use paper notebooks for these days: to take
notes in meetings (because it's still quicker), and to write my
mediation journal at the end of the day (where I don't want to be
distracted by a device again).

Ooh, can you say a bit more about how you use your meditation journal?

Beck

Beck wrote:

Ooh, can you say a bit more about how you use your meditation journal?

It's a relatively recent practice, so there is not all that much to say about it, as I only have a handful of entries at this point.

At a superficial level it is just a description of how the mediation went, partly just to be able to reflect on it, in order to help maintain and improve the routine.

It is also a record of my state of mind leading into the mediation, and of any thoughts or reflections that occurred during the mediation.

While the purpose of mediation is not to have any thoughts, the kind of things that come up to distract me do often turn out to be informative about one thing or another.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened when starting to write these entries was the acute experience of how writing with a pen on paper just felt different.

Considering that much of the zen type of mediation is about suspending a sense of a self, I had this feeling when I was looking at my hand doing the writing that there was more to it than just my conscious self that was involved in the writing process, or at least it was a different experience of selfhood than when typing on a keyboard.

I realise this could be read as some kind of a spiritual mumbo jumbo, but what I'm talking about can be also placed within the agency/structure debate in the social sciences, i.e. where does one draw the line between the self and the actual agency that may partly coincide with the self but could be more broadly distributed across a network that converges in the act of writing (or any other type of decision making)?

I'm sure a lot of people must have had this experience on this forum when you end up writing something and afterwards (sometimes immediately, sometimes weeks, months or years later) you don't recognise what you've written or are amazed at the content you came up with, using words you didn't even know you knew etc.

In a sense all writers are some kind of mediums, channelling various forces and interests that are beyond them. Though some of it might be just plagiarism ;)

Anyway, to bring this back to the topic, what I'm getting at is that there may be some broader implications to handwriting vs. typewriting, as the nature and range of the chain of media involved in connecting the words (on paper vs. screen) with wherever those thoughts come from is different.

Perhaps it shouldn't be too controversial to say that using different tools results in a different output. This can be observed in many other types of creation, especially in the creative arts (from sculpture to cinematography).

These are just the kind of responses I was hoping for: some thoughtful experience by someone who used the tool described, the random delightful link (Batman is 80 years old today, as it happens), and an extended musing on a new (to me) kind of journaling. I've been meditating since I was 12, and it never occurred to me to do a meditation journal. And of course, many other fascinating insights have popped up. Thanks to you all.

Dr Andus wrote:

Beck wrote:

Anyway, to bring this back to the topic, what I'm getting at is that
there may be some broader implications to handwriting vs. typewriting,
as the nature and range of the chain of media involved in connecting the
words (on paper vs. screen) with wherever those thoughts come from is
different.

Perhaps it shouldn't be too controversial to say that using different
tools results in a different output. This can be observed in many other
types of creation, especially in the creative arts (from sculpture to
cinematography).

I would like to echo these thoughts. I have begun using a Bullet Journal and it has made a world of difference in how I plan and organize my days. Not only does it eliminate the decision paralysis of where to write a task down, but it helps me a lot to go back and review. Every GTD system out there recommends a review process and Bullet Journaling is no different. The difference is that it's very natural and tactile to flip pages in a book (and weirdly enjoyable too).

I'm also finding that switching mediums helps slow me down in a good way. It can bring a new perspective. And for me, taking notes by hand means I'm processing information more compared to going into what I call "court reporter" (or transcription) mode--i can type very fast (as I'm sure is true of many people on this forum) and I will often mistake "taking notes" for "transcribing a meeting." The two are very different acts and using handwritten notes forces me to take real notes, not just transcribe.

Thank you, Dr Andus, for this thoughtful reply!

Dr Andus wrote:

Considering that much of the zen type of mediation is about suspending a
sense of a self, I had this feeling when I was looking at my hand doing
the writing that there was more to it than just my conscious self that
was involved in the writing process, or at least it was a different
experience of selfhood than when typing on a keyboard.

I have a long-standing practice of writing morning pages (three pages of freewriting first thing in the morning) that I write by hand. I have experimented with typing them at times and it's not the same for me either. Especially noteworthy is that same sort of awareness and awe at the words that materialize on paper via the electricity of thought... the tissues of muscles and arteries and limbs... the plastic, metal, and ink of the pen... and there then like magic on the page -- a thought or idea or connection or total nonsense. Not every word is accompanied by this awareness, which of course makes those times that they are all the more special. It's honestly one of my favorite experiences in the world.

This strongly reminds me of a couple of experiments I run from time to time:

First, trying to identify a thought before I articulate it to myself. This is remarkably difficult, and shows why certain linguistic philosophers regard thinking as inseparable from language;

Second, trying to identify/track the process by which I articulate a thought. It's incredibly difficult to "spot" where the words you "choose" (or don't choose?) to encapsulate a thought actually come from, at what point they emerge from your subconscious and become a coherent (or not, of course!), relatively integrated whole.

I'm sure reams of material have been written on both thought experiments; I just haven't had time to do my own further research on these aspects of consciousness (vs. subconscious idea processing, which is clearly fundamental to our cognition).

But it would be very interesting to extend the experiment to encompass writing - the physical act of writing - as well. I'm a touch typist, but I'd have to agree that the feeling of actual, physical, hand-to-paper writing is very different. Although in certain sublime touch-typing moments, I can feel a similar flow...

Perhaps we ought to set up a joint academic forum to pursue this research more actively!

Have a good week, everybody!
Bill

Thoughts are best when not-articulated, since articulation of any sort collapses understanding to grasping or i-making. Something not worth freezing for examination later.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html

Personally, I have a different experience of typing vs. handwriting. I find it much more effective for me to type, whether I'm recording information, or gathering it from my own mind. First of all, I am a very slow hand-writer, so it is not possible for me to record what goes on in meetings... I'm behind and asking myself, "What did she just say?"

But I also have a block when handwriting. I don't like to cross out words to edit a sentence. It makes me interrupt my flow of consciousness to try to get the sentences "right" the first time. Knowing I can easily edit my thoughts in digital form makes it so much easier for me to just barrel ahead getting them down in my digital notebook.

Almost 40 years ago, I spent 11 months bicycling around the United States. I kept paper journals (no other alternative back then). I recently transcribed those three paper journals and found them so wanting in insight and important detail. A major part of that, of course, is that I was young and a bad writer, and inexperienced in understanding the difference between uninsightful details and important observations. But I am sure that had I had a digital journal to record the day to day of the trip, I'd maybe not cut down on the useless detail, but I would have recorded a lot more of the important stuff.

I'm not saying there is no place for handwriting in my life. In fact, I just ordered a Grow Journal from Baron Fig:

https://www.baronfig.com/products/grow-daily-journal

Something about its setup appealed to me and makes me think there is at least a reasonable chance that I'll use it to good effect.

Steve Z

MadaboutDana wrote:

Perhaps we ought to set up a joint academic forum to pursue this
research more actively!

Not sure how serious a suggestion this is, Bill, but I'd love to do this.

I've done some preliminary research on daily freewriters, and have a database of folks who've signed up saying they'd be interested in being interviewed. So far I've dipped into it to explore the difference between analog and digital writing environments and also to phenomenologically (and auto-ethnographically) study the experiences of major life change as a byproduct of daily freewriting. A poster on the latter here if you're interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0spcvmK-ZmoR0w4am5CMUhUOU0/view?usp=sharing

Hm. Am I the only one here who feels awkward when writing by hand? I learnt touch-typing 40 years ago and type pretty fast. When I write by hand, I am much slower which frustrates me because I have no chance to keep up with my thinking. And I do not like my handwriting: It looks ugly and sloppy (when I try to write faster) and later I have problems deciphering what I wrote.

What's more: I prefer digital data because I lost so many slips of paper I had written ideas on and because I find it easier to file digital data.

Hi, Franz,

See my note from earlier today.

Steve Z

Franz Grieser wrote:

Hm. Am I the only one here who feels awkward when writing by hand? I
learnt touch-typing 40 years ago and type pretty fast. When I write by
hand, I am much slower which frustrates me because I have no chance to
keep up with my thinking. And I do not like my handwriting: It looks
ugly and sloppy (when I try to write faster) and later I have problems
deciphering what I wrote.

What's more: I prefer digital data because I lost so many slips of paper
I had written ideas on and because I find it easier to file digital
data.

Yes, I agree. My handwriting has deteriorated badly in recent decades -- whether because of old age or constant use of keyboards, I'm not sure. But whatever the reason, I certainly don't want to return to any sort of note-taking by hand.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Hi, Franz,

See my note from earlier today.

Steve Z

I just read it and thought. "Thank god, I am not alone" ;-)