Rob Bushway shares some great thoughts on using paper vs. computers:
You will never hear from me that digital notetaking can and should take the place of paper-based notetaking. It hasn’t in my life and likely won’t. The value and balance of a Tablet PC solution is in making the technology work for you, when you need it and how you want to use it. The value it brings to the table is in offering a person more flexibility in how they choose to work given their needs, desires, and unique work styles. Having that flexibility doesn’t mean an all or nothing scenario in regards to paper-based notetaking. It means a person now has more choices to adapt their work style to their current needs, and that is definitely a good thing.
A key point Rob makes is that working with technology doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach. As much as I love technology, I've always gotten myself in trouble anytime I've tried to go paper-free. There's just no substitute sometimes for being able to write and draw things without the boundaries (or delays) computers have. In economic terms, paper and PCs should be seen as compliments and not substitutes. There are diminishing marginal returns in trying to become too centric in either direction.
Continuing with this theme, Om Malik writes:
A simple Moleskin notebook (ultraportable), a Waterman pen (ultrareliable), and a Blackberry (just in case) to keep me company - I spent nearly four hours making a massive to-do list, thinking about tasks that need to be accomplished before the year is over. Little things that need to be taken care off, bills that need to be paid, and emails that need immediate attention.
More than anything, the act of putting pen to the paper, organic, when compared to a computer, is one that opens up brain’s windows.
The raw information is already there - I have been reporting for a while now, but have not been able to arrange the pieces and snippets in a manner that allowed me to tell the stories I wanted to tell.
I like his list! I'd substitute my Treo for the Blackberry and some Pilot G2's for the Waterman (grad student, remember?). I like the idea of reliable simplicity.
Doug Johnson identifies why this simplicity is advantageous. In a word: FOCUS:
Not only does using paper planners, storyboards, index cards, whiteboards and flip charts allow us to see and experience things from entirely new vantage points, they force us to re-examine the execution and importance of the task at hand. It's the break from the worn-out tech-centred paradigm, with no restrictions to hinder you, not even battery life.
While we're on the topic of focus, paper does help slow down the world, if only for a mere moment, and collect your thoughts. Free from the white noise of websites, the endless pinging of the email inbox, the 120 menu items per mouse click, and the average of one thousand significant chunks of information per hour, we can devote the entirety of one instance to one topic. Clarity of thought, anyone?
Mike Rhode looks at some of Doug's advice and wonders if he should go back to paper and ditch his PDA? He even goes so far as to come up with this idea for creating a custom planner.
Here are five reasons to use a paper todo list:
- Using pen on paper just feels good.
- You can’t beat pen and paper’s mobility and accessibility.
- Never hassle over synchronizing your to do list across multiple devices again.
- No application lock-in.
- Pen on paper gets you away from the computer.
I like all of these ideas. I constantly find myself in a love-hate relationship with computers. I can typically work and write much faster on them than I can with pen and paper. However, they also have far more distractions and when something goes afoul with them, you can lose days of work in one fell swoop. (Last year, my laptop failed during finals with all of my notes on it.) They're also tough to use if you're doing a lot of mathematical equations or graphing.
At the end of the day, I agree with Rob Bushway. Technology is great in that it gives greater options in the way we work. The trick is to let technology help rather than constrain us in how we work. Paper and PCs both should be part of the toolkit for anyone looking to be both productive and effective. We'd do well to learn how to use both tools to their maximum potential.
My Previous Posts on Paper and Pencils:
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