Embracing Paper

I love paper. I never thought I’d be saying something like this. It seems I have always been trying to go more and more digital. My 1st handheld computer was a Velo 1 which I upgraded to an HP Jornada 680 until I realized that I kept advising everyone who asked me to get a Palm PDA, which of course I did too. In addition I digitally record TV, listen to digital music on my iPod, get weather maps on my digital phone and read email from Becky on my digital pager. With all this, I was baffled as to how I could be so digitally enhanced and so disorganized. My latest handheld Palm OS PDA, a Sony Clie TJ-35, has a calendar, address book, and to do list, so why wasn’t I getting anything done? The Palm OS is the simplest, most intuitive handheld platform on the market, but to enter a To Do item I still had to pull it out, turn it on, pull out the stylus, navigate to the To Do section, pick New To Do Item from a menu, and then either type it in on a tiny onscreen keyboard or use Grafiti – special 1-2 stroke gestures I learned to write on the screen for it to recognize them as letters – to enter the item. It took a minute or two, but often I was so busy that I wouldn’t do it. I’d either try to juggle it in my head or I’d jot it on a scrap of paper and shove it in my pocket to either remind me about the To Do item or enter into my Clie when I had time.

A few months ago I stumbled onto a reference online to the Hipster PDA. I built my own from scratch at home for less than $1 and it changed my life. The Hipster is a stack of 3x5” note cards and a binder clip. That, plus a pen, has helped me get more things done in the last few months than all of my digital sources combined. I have one card with a To Do list (write it down, cross it off), one card that just list the next action I need to take to complete something on my To Do list, Project cards for items that have multiple steps, monthly calendar cards where I can jot events down quickly and retrieve them at a glance, a shopping cards for things I want to get for myself or others, a Someday/Maybe card for bigger ideas that I want to ruminate on, and a few blank cards for whatever else I need. I still use my PDA all the time. It is great for storing and searching databases like my Epocrates medication reference or my address book (though I do keep a card in the Hipster with frequently called numbers on it).

My latest paper acquisition is a Moleskine pocket journal. It is slightly larger than my Hipster, with creamy pages bound beautifully in a hard cover that closes with an integrated elastic band. It has a woven ribbon to mark what page I was on. Its almost too beautiful to write in...almost. I’m using it for more permanent thoughts – short term goals, a journal entry, a record of Aaron’s first words so far. I have a larger journal I have been filling for 3 years now, but it is too big to carry around routinely, so I hope to do more writing because I can carry it easier. Think about adding a little bit of useful paper to your life, too.