The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one. However, I can sympathize. I teach drawing and design. Of course, most of my students were raised on digital media. For some, their first experience drawing was digital! I have a lot of trouble explaining to them the value of pencil and paper.
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.
One benefit of the ethereal nature of digital is that editing is really easy which is part of what makes digital so appealing. The downside is that it makes it hard to silence your inner editor. Often the editor takes over before you even get to create.
> I teach drawing and design. Of course, most of my students were raised on digital media. For some, their first experience drawing was digital! I have a lot of trouble explaining to them the value of pencil and paper.
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.
> The article does not explain what the value of pen and paper has over a digital note pad. It just declares it has one.
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.
Yes, but why? I am not being a pedant. My task is to convince students to use pencil and paper from having been raised on a lifetime of digital. They require more than a simple (and true) observation. What is it about pen and paper that provides more focus? What is the mechanism at play?
Nice article. Thanks. It is certainly something that a lot of us here are naturally interested in. But With respect, I don't think that your observations constitute a mechanism. Digital Apps that are deliberately feature-restricted do not hold the same attraction. I believe that there must be some further mechanism at play.
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.
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.
> 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.
Did you look into Remarkable e-paper tablet? [0] Many people swear by it because it supposedly has the feeling of paper when writing (the screen has a matte/rough texture). I've ordered one myself, haven't received yet so I can't vouch for whether those opinions are true or not, though.
Yep. I know the device. While it's promising, e-ink has some inherent problems. Namely, color and speed.
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.
Haven't tried Remarkable. Did get the SO a wacom tablet last holiday season, seems to like it, I couldn't stand the thing. It feels kinda like using a pencil -- an unpleasantly thick one. I wonder if there could be an issue whereby the sort of folks who are OK with something feeling vaguely like writing on paper are already well served, but the really picky/peculiar people (I tend to stick to a particular brand of pencil and .3mm soft lead) are just living in this fat tail where the digital replacement will never be quite right.
I'd rather just write on the paper. I wish there was an easy way to digitize it, though.
I personally prefer pen and paper when I need to summarize projects to main steps/ideas. Nothing like the fixed/finite space that you need to work with to make you more efficient.
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 with you here -- constraints like that can definitely be useful! The constraint of slowing down to write by hand is also useful for me in this context.
This is the hole point why they created reMarkable, to basically disconnect you from the constant interruptions from today's world. You can read about this on their blog: https://blog.remarkable.com/ I got reMarkable 2 and it really works! Now I'm even making notes when I'm in front of my computer, it's way better feeling than typing.
I got the reMarkable 2 also, and I love it. There is one aspect of paper it does not really replicate well, though, and that is the ability to spread half a dozen sheets of paper in front of you for quick reference while you're working on your notes. Swiping between pages is too disruptive, not to mention jumping back and forth between notebooks.
The latency has been much improved between rM1 and rM2, apparently. I have only the latter, and I can say the latency is not at all noticeable. My only complaint is with the accuracy of the digitiser: My strokes tend to end up a fraction of a millimeter higher up on the page than where I intend them to go. This is very rarely a problem for me, but can be a source of irritation when I make minor corrections. I have no idea if this is universal or specific to my device, but I intend to find out.
Its very simple; I take notes every monring on what I'm going to do for work for the day, and then take nodes on what I push out to the next day or week
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 wrote an app which I use for exactly the same purpose and it's served me quite well so far. I've been writing almost every day for a year. I keep it on a separate screen and jot down my thoughts if I feel that I lack focus (more info here https://sonnet.io/posts/ulysses).
I used to worry that pen/paper wasn't the perfect note taking system because it lacks the searchability of digital notes - but over time I have realized that the primary purpose of notes for me isn't long term but short term. Writing something down, like the author states, helps me focus and accomplish the task at hand, and the more I worry about the long term value of the notes the less I take notes because I am worried about making the notes perfect!
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!
I also find that handwriting notes forces a kind of “hear or read, digest quickly, rephrase in a short hand way the keep points so I can pay attention to the next thing I am hearing or reading”
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.
Not the individual you replied to, but my company uses both internally. We used to use Skype (for softphones, video meetings, and IM), which sucked for group messaging. Slack unofficially picked up steam to fill the void, among some teams.
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.
Corporate uses Teams, Dev/Sys org use Slack. Mergers/Acquisitions complicate everything and ability to implement SSO across everything isn’t always speedy. Teams integration with Outlook is handy for some things, otherwise Slack is preferred - particularly due to preexisting integrations to pipelines etc.
We use teams for scheduled conference calls/meetings as it handles larger groups better than slack and outlook is setup to add team-meeting links into calendar events.
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.
> It's all too easy these days to have a clear intention only to be sidetracked by the whirlpool of apps and services clawing for our attention on our devices.
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).
> 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.
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.
For wire-framing or diagrams I find pen and paper (or a whiteboard) to be the best solution too. Too often most of the effort goes into "properly" using the app, when it should be spent on the concept. Just draw a picture, take a photo and email it or whatever, and done.
I have never been able to replace a pen and a paper. I've tried a ton of app and other systems with emails and notepad, but it just doesn't do the work for me. I feel like I remember it better when it's on a piece of paper.
I prefer typing, writing is so slow. And there is also very important aspect to me: 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.
This! There's also plenty of research backing up the idea that writing with a pen commits the information to memory more effectively than typing. It makes sense if you consider the extra time and effort being dedicated to what you're writing.
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.
All of the research I've read connects this effect to paraphrasing but, it doesn't have to be, at least for me.
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.
While I agree with this I also find tremendous value sometimes in slowing down, forcing me to think before I write something down exactly because of the high cost of writing. It makes every word more valuable. I can type a lot of junk really really fast...
For me, it is clay tablet and stylus to really get rid of distractions. Even with pen and paper, I can find myself doodling. However, with a clay tablet I am focused. As a benefit, the process of going out and collecting the clay and forming it into a tablet gives me time to organize my thoughts. Then when I do put my thoughts down, I can bake it it the oven and know that it will last a few thousand years. Pen and paper seems so ethereal in comparison.
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).
For me it depends on context and need, but even if one hectic day I decide to use Jake Knapp's paper burner list instead of org-mode, at the end of the day everything still gets put into my electronic system. I still haven't found a paper system that can offer search and tagging as good as something like Emacs, OmniFocus, Evernote, etc
Definitely agree -- paper is something that should compliment your overall system, it's pretty hard to get by with paper alone these days.
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.
Evernote at one point a few years ago had a pen and paper thing with a grid on it they could recognize. You took pictures of it. I think it was made by moleskine. Has this been updated? This was to my recollection about 5 years ago when I first saw someone using this technique of hybrid analog/digital capture.
i am jumping back to pen and paper or more of direct hand interfaces . I also recently bought graphic tablet for storing handwritten notes.From what i think computer can help you store ideas vertically,with excel you can have vertically as well but still the interface is the keyboard and not whole hands. vague thoughts!!
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.
Just continue writing. Get a good (preferably fountain) pen a good notebook and work slowly. You won't believe how your writing will improve over time.
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.
I really want one of these because I the pen and paper process (wholeheartedly agree with the authors statements)
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.
There seems to be a flurry of these articles posted to HN, which are vague, loquacious, superficial, obtuse, poorly punctuated, occasionally excessively poly-syllabic, repetitive, colloquial and plausible, yet ultimately nonsensical.
We need a new adjective for what it is to be like GPT-3 ...
You meant, there are people who do have whiteboards at home? ;-)
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.
It is a very common practice in India to have maids come in everyday and clean the homes. It is also dusty enough in India that we need to clean our floors everyday. That includes any excess generated by the Whiteboard.
I do. I can safely say all my future dwellings will have whiteboards too. Indispensable for me.
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 know people who are really happy with these, using the Staedtler correctable pens. I prefer a regular pad of paper, but it seems some people are made more comfortable working things out on an erasable medium.
Pencils don't do it for me. I find the color of the text written to be too faint for my comfort. Pens on the other hand write text in bright blue color which is I find more pleasing to read.
I do. I use it for thinking, but also use pen & paper for that. For math, I almost solely use pen & paper. I used to use erasable ballpens, but they have a nasty habit of failing if you leave them in the sun, which happens a lot for me. So now I'm using pencils again.
I hate whiteboards. But I have a blackboard in my office. I would have one at home too, if I had room for it.
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.
I had one. Currently it's not possible due to size constraints but, evolving something on a big canvas is completely different even when compared to pen and paper.
However, I put pen & paper above whiteboards so, I'm not missing it as I guessed at first.
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.