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Comment by xeyownt | Hacker News Reader

Since I have a laptop, I threw away all paper support, focusing on the keyboard as primary information interface.

Using paper and space to organize ideas is nice, but that's a niche use-case. And in any case, you'll have to digitalize it anyway afterwards, so better start on the digital version immediately, and be good at it. Everytime I start a new project, I'm tempted to take a pencil and paper, but then I refrain and use draw.io or the like because I know it will be winning on the longer run.

For the rest, you can easily customize your phone / browser / anything to be less distracting.

As for using AI just for convenience, this looks like very expensive in terms of resource.

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I can jot out a system diagram on paper way better and faster than I can on a computer. Ditto UI design mockups. Having something that can translate those into a better computerized representation than a png is awesome. Paper -> graphviz/Mermaid/whatever, LOL.

This holds even with really-nice drawing interfaces like ProCreate on a 13" iPad. Paper's still better for some things. Outside of work, the way I make maps (of just about any zoom-level) for RPGs I run is to sketch them on paper, take a photo of that and import it to pro-create, trace the lines there (in a new layer), and add color/texture. I get way better results faster, and am way less frustrated, than if I start with a blank "sheet" on the iPad. The paper sitting fully flat on my table, being able to easily and precisely turn it this way and that, erasing or smudging out or just X-ing elements I mess up, plus just messing up way less to begin with, all that adds up to real paper being a way better UI for an initial draft-sketch, for me.

When dealing with humans irl, I try to stick to paper interfaces (note books etc). I feels super distracted/anti social when I am taking notes on my computer or phone.

This is why I was glad to purchase a Newton MessagePad (and before that an NCR-3125 running Go Corp. PenPoint), and all my devices since have had styluses (even my MacBook has a Wacom One display).

Maybe you should interrogate that temptation to reach for physical interfaces? It sounds like you're ignoring your own psychology and shaping yourself to the machines around you instead of thinking of how the machines could be shaped to you.

Not that I haven't done exactly the same thing as you, I never keep paper around and my handwriting has gotten terrible. I'm saying this to myself and others as well.

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