Manual note-taking/journaling dilemma ✍️
I've always been fascinated by people who use physical notebooks to keep track of things. However, I never really tried it myself. Checking videos of other people and learning about bullet journaling is as far as I would get. Everything of what I do is digital.
20 years ago, when I started working, I did use a physical notebook to keep track of meetings and tasks. However, as more was to be shared online, I took digital meeting minutes, for convenience and something to return to quickly. I also didn't have a system for tasks, so every day, I had a huge list if things, of which I picked a few, only to return to an as big list the next day.
So when task managers emerged, I jumped on the digital bandwagon and never looked back. The same with my note-taking, I went from OneNote to Obsidian to Tana, and have stuck with this for years. I've perfected my setup which helps me keep track of everything going on. Meetings, projects, people,...
The same applies to my personal setup. I've been using task managers for everything I had to do, and when I got an interest in personal note-taking and journaling, I started with Obsidian. I still us it to this day. Although not consistently every day, requiring a catch-up from time to time. But sticking with it, I managed to have a lot of notes I can look back at. Memories, events,... that are easily accessible.
But that manual fascination has never gone away. Earlier this week, via a recommended article list from Medium, I stumbled on The only thing that stopped me from infinite scrolling, of how he fixed certain aspects of his life by using pen and paper.
This intrigued me, as part of our digital addiction comes from the fact that we use our phones for everything. And it's true. If today I would log a habit as complete, I open my phone, go to a specific app to mark the habit as done. This puts me at risk to get triggered to check out other things. Not to mention the different apps I use for different purposes. Again with the risk of getting lost. Sure, I can configure my phone as dumb one, but still, distractions are only a search or swipe away.
Another thing I noticed is that I enjoy physical writing, whether it's writing in a notebook or using an Apple Pencil on my iPad. I enjoy that feeling.
However, before completely diving in, I feel I need to assess whether it's really something for me, and not just a temporary fad. Also, to define what I want to do with it and how, as there are many methods, tools, and gadgets available.
And more importantly, I'll need to get around the FOMO that I'm currently experiencing with this transition. I've been into digital for such a long time, that it feels look losing all of it once I go manual. The question if I still should update my digital notes, resulting in extra work.
But I don't want to let it go.
So for now, I'm going with a tiny experiment, writing some work notes and task observations via an iPad, and logging some of my habits via a physical notebook. Let's see where it'll take me. Maybe in time I can add my story or wins of the day in such a notebook as well.
And maybe I'll learn to let go, that I don't have to keep everything forever.
Do you log everything manually?
Or have gone through a similar transition?
Or use a hybrid manual/digital method?
I'm all ears to hear your experiences.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
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