why i take notes in a paper notebook

this past weekend i wrote a draft of the last essay of my book. feels good to have drafts of all 7 essays. they’re sloppy af, have many holes, and probably don’t make much sense, but they exist! now i just have five weeks until my august writing retreat to fill in the holes and prep to edit the whole thing. oh wow… i’m sidetracked super hard right now!

i brought up the book process because something came up in writing the draft that i hadn’t fully processed until then. it started last week in a conversation with kelly bates and then came out more fully processed during my weekend writing day.

the essay is on tools and i was writing up why i have both paper and digital todo lists. i spent most of my time writing about how my digital todo lists function, but there were three important insights that explain why i don’t have a completely digital system. in fact, i was all paper back in the day, then switched to completely digital, and now i’m in a ‘both/and.’

so why have i brought paper back into my system?

• some tasks just seem to vanish in my digital todo lists (usually the small ones)

• sometimes it’s awkward to take notes on a computer, especially in 1on1 settings with someone i haven’t worked with before. the physical barrier of the screen adds to a psychic wall that doesn’t feel conducive to building relationships

• it just feels good to use a notebook! i like carrying it and taking it out and using it. i like using it even moreso now that i’m running it bullet journal() style. feels good and looks good: these things matter for personal systems… they matter a lot more than most people expect.

• taking paper notes helps keep me in the meeting. sometimes i get caught up in trying to keep up with taking detailed notes instead of engaging in the moment.

• it’s helpful (at least initially) to track next steps from 1on1 meetings in the same place that i took the notes for that meeting.

words / writing / post-processing
356w / 11min / 5min