On Savoring the PAPER in the DIGITAL Age

Who uses paper these days? Everything has gone digital; we communicate with each other using social networking, chatting, texting, and emailing; we plan for everyday things using online calendar; we read news online, and most of the bestselling books are now e-books. More recently, the digital space has been further expanded by innovations like MindMap (a note-taking tool) and Sticky Screen (digital version of the post-it note).

Nevertheless, I find myself using pen and paper quite a lot.  Here are a few tasks where I find using paper extremely effective and pleasant.

Planning: I use a paper planner instead of an online calendar for everyday planning. I can carry it wherever I want to and keep updating and tracking tasks from anywhere. Also, I make several paper based lists, e.g., shopping, packing, gifts, grocery, etc. On the wall beside my work desk, I stick a mini goal chart that provides high visibility to the 3-5 key monthly goals. On this wall, I also like to stick the visual equivalent of the most difficult problem I am working on – so that I don’t lose the big picture perspective. One may argue that a white board may also fulfill this requirement. However, being a minimalist, I find whiteboard to be too big to match up with the minimal size work desk I use.

Organizing Scientific Thoughts: Being a visual learner, I am able to understand a problem domain and the related works only by drawing figures and frameworks. Considering the fast pace of research contributions, the only way for me to stay productive is to use paper and pen. Also, most of the research ideas (and brilliant solutions) occur at odd hours and places. If I have access to any piece of paper and a pen, I can immediately capture them in black and white instead of having the ideas get lost or deformed.  Plus, I like to read, revise, and review research papers using the printed versions. Despite the strong support provided by Adobe Acrobat, I find marking, underlining, note taking, and cutting much easier on paper.

Stimulating Creative Thinking: Who doesn’t get creative while travelling or walking by the park? I always carry a small handy notepad or just a paper where I can capture these thoughts, and even sketch. I have noticed people playing with their phones and laptops as well, however, I prefer to be able to move lightly and find writing by hand much more relaxing than typing.   Quite a number of times, I have ended up with prototypes of some art projects, new ideas for home set up, or just with a clearer stream of thoughts.

Product Design and Redesign:  This one is my favorite. I have made several bookmarks (out of used paper material) to make reading more interesting. Not sure if any painting made using the MS paintbrush tool can provide an experience as rewarding as a sketch drawn out on a paper. It is quite easy to make paper folders out of used colorful envelopes to make organization more fun.  I don’t think making greeting cards, writing letters and thank you notes will ever lose its charm. Also, I have created a little paper-based birthday reminder tool that is at least as effective as any sophisticated birthday reminder tool online.

Labeling and Household Management: This set of tasks is quite obvious but a good one to remind ourselves of the reliance on paper. Many use post it notes for setting reminders –“do this,” “toss this,” etc. Paper is also used for labeling containers (“recycle,” “coupons,” “shred”), vital documents, spice holders, and medicine boxes.  I recently started using a label outside the refrigerator that says what’s current in the freezer section, as food items stored in the freezer usually get ignored and eventually wasted. 

I have come to realize that the feel of the natural medium of paper-pen does something to me that even a high quality digital editor and an ergonomic keyboard cannot do.  It has been scientifically proven that writing by hand improves focus and cognitive abilities. I personally feel very educated when I write on a paper.  I must admit that it does waste paper but all these activities could be done using leftover materials like freebie notebooks that we all unintentionally accumulate, magazines, used envelopes, and the unused space of a used paper. Moreover, once the paper has been used up, it is either used for a certain task (as a product), and it could be recycled.

I am not against using technology, but have just discovered my natural preferences as a result of monitoring my paper usage patterns. The digital media is very powerful especially for addressing a larger section of people, and in making a professional impact and personal branding.   A paper media cannot replace activities like blogging, professional networking (such as through LinkedIn), consuming information through forums and news websites.  However, for deeper, creative, and more personal stuff, I think one is much more effective using paper wherein half baked ideas can be quickly formalized while providing the much needed rest to the eyes.