Start with pen and paper
sethetter.com
sethetter.com
In “Personal Dynamic Media.” (1977) Kay, Alan and Goldberg described a computer as a meta medium: a medium that can 'fake' other media (my synopsis). I think we are always aware of this when working digitally. There is something in us that is aware of the essentially ethereal nature of the digital. I'm not sure that is the right word though.
As I'm involved in tech drawing creation & teaching, I already switched from using pencil'n'paper to FLOSS 2D CAD QCAD Community Edition.[0,1]
But, for curious reasons, I really like to draw some technical drawing oldschool-way too.
I agree. Digital device with connectivity to the Internet is full of distractions. If you mean a digital notepad with no Internet access, then yes, that can be a solution too.
Nothing beats the feeling of a real pen and paper for me. The texture of the paper and the feedback of the pen changes the experience a lot for me. Even if I've grown with computers and wanted my profession since forever, nothing beats paper (incl. e-paper/e-ink) when it comes to writing.
Working with an analog medium completely changes the mode my brain works too. I can concentrate much deeper and can think much more broadly. I love reading from e-readers but, for writing there's no substitute.
I'd rather just write on the paper. I wish there was an easy way to digitize it, though.
I always design my software on paper first and, color is needed for diagrams. I also read academic papers a lot and use color-coded highlighters (remember / further research / etc.). Remarkable doesn't support these workflows.
e-ink is not a fast medium. I have an eBook reader (Kobo Glo HD / 300dpi) and I love it for reading but, highlighting process is slow and ugly (lower color depth -> overdrive for fast response -> repaint with correct gray levels -> done). Writing will be similar, with some lag and that's flow breaking and unacceptable for me.
At the end of the day, it's a good skeumorphic device which mimics paper albeit a rigid and slower one. On the other hand, paper's tactile response is unmatchable, especially when combined with fountain pens (which I use a lot).
Also, there are some ritualistic stuff with pen and paper. Every project has its own notebook, which triggers context response in my brain. When I get the notebook, I reload the stuff at the background. Every other task is automatically pushed back by the subconscious. It's a kind of leveraging the "library" system of the brain.
iPad pro has a faster screen and color but, backlit screens kill my eyes after a certain time period (All my panels are either OLED or high quality IPS with reduced blue light). I don't want to lose my eyesight for that.
I want to add that paper is hard to digitize, takes a lot of physical space and has maintenance but, these downsides are balanced out by the advantages it brings, at least for me.
I love working with digital systems. I use Pagico & Trello extensively. A digital diagram a lot. Keep structured knowledge bases in Evernote and Zim but, when it comes to thinking and documenting the thinking process, I always return to the pen & paper and, get that 10x boost instantly. I just can't replace it and I don't want to replace it anymore.
Trivia: Words like "On the other hand", "in that case", etc. comes from early memorization techniques where you imagine that you're actually putting that subject/idea in to your hand or a physical case which helps with structuring big subjects a lot. Using paper, different notebooks, etc. triggers the same circuitry to improve focus, retention and efficiency.
Would some handwavy explanation be better? Sometimes all we have is an observation and it can be valuable to share and discuss it without immediately making up some explanation.
Yes, perhaps it has to do with tactile feedback, immediacy, not having to brace for annoying notifications and nagging of digital devices (new message, new update available, extra information filling up the screen, having to "buffer" what's behind windows in a "mental stack").
But who knows, this is speculation, we don't understand the brain well enough to say why precisely this is how it is.
The advantage is being clear from potential distractions. A lack of "features" providing a direct line of focus on what you're writing.
Apologies if that wasn't clear from the article!
Perhaps as animals were are primed for the tactile, and everything else feels ghostly. I don't know. All I know is that no expand I can come to will convince my young students of the value of analogue.
From the article, at the very beginning: "Nothing will provide focus like pen and paper."
I have a digital notepad from work. I don't see it the same. I can write novels on the damn thing and would still have room to spare.
Maybe it's just personal preference or just being weird but I'd rather have half of A4 to work with just to organize my thoughts properly.
I'm so tempted by these devices but that is my main concern, does it truly feel like pen on paper?
This could be done with pen an paper, but my mind does not like all the paper laying around. Clutter bothers me
I love this tool but I know its only right for some people
I hope this helps
Feel free to check it out, it might help you too: https://ulysses.sonnet.io
Another tool that I find helpful: iPad Pro + Concepts for doodling/ad hoc notes.
I should've expected that when I used "Ulysses" for an app about writing as a stream of consciousness. ;/
I might change it to Homer—he is/was believed to be blind.
What I do now is use a stack of nice small notebooks from Field Notes (no relation, just a customer), one for each project. I just scribble things in when I need and it helps me push forward!
That forced summarization I think does a lot for the brain. I find handwritten notes are almost not needed after the notes are written... your brain already put the summarized information in your head because you had to work with it to pick what was important.
The ephemeral nature makes me work more quickly, I find.
Now we've migrated from Skype to Teams internally. Groups that originally filled the void with Slack have pretty much continued due to momentum, but those that didn't have picked up Teams pretty enthusiastically. There's not really an advantage to one vs. the other, besides network effects and momentum.
We don't actually have an official Slack org, and but rather a smattering of Slack orgs (some paid, some not). But they're all used outside of the purview of IT, which probably isn't a good thing. Even the paid orgs are just expensed directly by various business teams, rather than centrally managed/invoiced by IT.
One thing of note is that we're an agency (well, a holding company with many agencies), and it's not uncommon for some of our clients to want us to sign into their Slack orgs and use it as a preferred means of communication. So our central IT makes the Slack client available for download, even though we don't have an official Slack org ourselves. This ease of access is probably one reason it started getting used in the first place.
We use slack for team discussions and DM and sometimes for one-one calls.
I think this happened naturally and wasn't a planned path.
I have to admit I'm a bit baffled by these remarks. It is very easy to have a "apps and services"-free experience: just kill notifications. Why would the paper make a difference? It's not like your "attention-clawing" misconfigured device is not still at your reach.
That said, I am a big fan of "digital writing" ever since tablet PCs were a thing, and I have yet to find anything that even approaches the convenience of pen and paper. In fact, my current preferred "digital writing" method is to use one of these digitizing pens, with my favourite tech being Anoto's/Livescribe (if only the company was not actively user-hostile).
Absolutely true, this article is generally a reminder for people (like myself) who can struggle with attention and are a little too easily pulled into things once I'm engaged with a screen.
I try to keep my notifications groomed appropriately, but I also have many allowed through thanks to work. I can groom all I want, but a computer is always going to offer more distractions than paper.
This is the core idea of stopping and writing. Forcing your brain to slow down to a certain speed so, it focuses whether it likes it or not.
I do the exact same thing as the article suggests and my coworkers sometimes ask why am I doing this.
My brain's brakes malfunction sometimes and this is an external brake to stop and restart gracefully. It works wonders.
I've ditched pen and paper in the past because it was too slow for me. Over time I've realized that desire to "go fast" can be good in some contexts, and bad in others. Slowing down with pen and paper does a much better job of clarifying and directing my thoughts.
When I get the pen in my hand, everything changes, incl. the way I think.
Also while unrelated, if I'm working on something in English, my whole data processing pipeline switches to English. Everything returns to my native language when I finish. Strange and fascinating.
> I've ditched pen and paper in the past because it was too slow for me....
Same for me. I've gone through that phase too. Tried to be too efficient but found out that excessive speed kills (concentration, in-depth thinking and the broad perspective). Then I've returned to my old ways for thinking.
However, getting used to something like Evernote and Trello for longer term planning complemented writing and supercharged both, at least for me.
I feel this misses the point. Each has its place: typing is faster for long slabs of linear text; writing is way faster for diagrams and when the physical location of each phrase matters.
> when I type I cannot draw anything and that's great because usually I can't decipher drawings I made while writing with pen and paper.
So try to do it more! I was a management consultant 20 years ago. I still solve problems by grabbing a piece of paper, turning it landscape, and sketching the problem's components and their interrelationships.
Heck, one of the reasons I joined BCG in Australia back in 1996 was their interview used 0.9mm mechanical pencils and high quality sketching pads. The pencil I used back then is beside my computer right now.
I love a fullscreen, empty text editor.
I prefer to learn to focus instead of forcing myself to focus. Putting my editor in fullscreen is against visual clutter, but I don't have to shut down my laptop not to read HN instead (or do I? excuse: was not doing a deep focus task right now, but waiting for slack replies. Waiting makes me jump to other apps right away... So glad I don't have build times in my job).
If my goal is to focus in on what I'm thinking about, pulling myself away from the computer and putting pen to paper does a better job than anything digital has been able to provide me.
You're touching on a reason I like paper too -- in a digital format, I end up thinking too much about how I'm going to organize the information as opposed to just getting my thoughts down.
Organizing the information is important too, but worrying about it before your thoughts are clarified is a quick way for me to get pulled away from my focus on the problem.
Each tool has it's place!
I had the worst writing in the class. Now, some people tell that I have hand-fonts.
Mindful writing also teaches you to focus deeply, so it's a bonus too.
Not the same technically, but effectively is for me
Is it worth it? Is it better than just having a whiteboard next to me? I feel like most the time I use the whiteboard it is temporary things that kick me off before moving to Visio or JIRA. The price tag seems so high for its single use. But, still itching to buy it.
We need a new adjective for what it is to be like GPT-3 ...
disgenerative?
misformational?
cyberblathering?
babble streaming?
thesaurus gargling?
An issue with both notebooks and computers is that once I write/draw something, I don’t have the discipline to revisit. Whereas a whiteboard is always in view and I can reorganise it or add to while going about day to day activities.
The only drawback I’m seeing is the more I use it, the more indispensable I find it.
I don’t have one, or a good spot for one in my home office. But for a few years I’ve used the notebook linked above.
Earlier I used to have a massive one in the bedroom, because my brain starts kicking in its last ounce of ideas and gotchas just as I'm falling asleep. My wife soon got rid of that and now I have it in my study room.
I love pen/paper, whiteboards, and writing.
Especially after COVID restrictions went into effect.
However, I put pen & paper above whiteboards so, I'm not missing it as I guessed at first.
I find it focuses the mind just to get my butt out of the office chair and go stand before the blackboard when I confront a thorny problem. It us very likely good for the body as well.