I love technology and computers and all that, but I will never be able to give up having a paper diary to keep my day-to-day life organized. I took some time over Christmas and New Year’s to chill out, and after that took this planner I ordered off the shelf and started filling it in.

The first thing I put in there are the important university dates. After that, I will put in some personal goals in the form of dates with some reminders (2 weeks from finishing X on a date 2 weeks ahead of when I wanted something accomplished). This has been my strategy for so long I wonder if I will ever move to using Google calendar or anything like that.

I do use the digital calendars to help coordinate with other people, but I do not use it for “me to me” communication. I would miss every appointment. Likewise, Google calendar often gets things wrong, inappropriately correcting the date or time of a meeting based on where someone else is in the world.

As far as notes, I move back and forth between options. Sometimes I will write on paper or in a notebook, other times type directly into Google Documents, which is the best program for note taking as it’s searchable and easy to copy and paste into more formal writing.

I wonder what it is that keeps me using paper planners. One thing I think it might be is being able to open it up and seeing the whole week written out there. This helps me every morning as I’m waking up become the sort of me I need to be to do all that stuff. If I see every day that there’s a meeting on Thursday, I’m in a better spot in my head for participating in that meeting when it comes around. Not sure how true this is, just a feeling.

Also something more permanent is conveyed when I write something down in the planner, it helps me accept the reality of what needs to be done. I don’t get that feeling from the computer.

In terms of drafting and writing though, the computer is where it’s at. There’s nothing that works as well as opening up a blank document and going to town on it. This I can’t really do with a paper journal, although I can write fragmentary lines or notes in one.