There is a general opinion which is expressed once in a while that digital devices will kill the handwriting. All studying can be done on some kind of portable computer these days, namely a tab or a smartphone. You can search for information, take notes, write, and plan on your gadget. Besides, there is an app for everything. However, something about the very aesthetics of paper notepads and organizers speaks of the different — the paper items will live long, as they provide not just visual, but also tangible experience of scheduling and planning. So, use paper planners to organize your day.
You might disagree that there are lots of specific apps which you can use to do your planning super-fast and effectively. For example, you can find a colorful calendar app and a nicely-looking notepad, in case you are not satisfied with the native ones. You can even make complex notes by including different types of media (text, drawings, links, and other). However, if you imagine a good paper notebook, you will see that it can be far better than your bunch of apps.
First of all, the information you store is physically accessible to you — it does not go anywhere for no apparent reason. At the same time, digital data may be not available simply because you changed the device or because it was just lost as a result of some malware or attack. You can have a universal notebook and take all your college notes with you and access them at need regardless of the quality of your Internet connection.
Secondly, you can visualize your information even better than using digital tools on a device. You can buy some colored tape or stickers and assign them to specific plans, subjects, or types of activities that you will be listing in the notepad. You can use colors to prioritize tasks — just put a fire-red sticker next to the most important task in the list, and you will see it as soon as you open your paper organizer. Similarly, you can cover the issues that have been changed with strips of grey tape, for example.
Thirdly, when you write something down on paper, you make it more tangible. This is why it is better to use notepads for planning, as you know that you didn’t just type something in for the sake of the record, but with a serious intention on your mind. Also, you can cross out items, rumple the pages, or tear them off entirely. You cannot do that digitally. And how about drawing on the margins while taking notes in a class? Of course, this is all optional, and some may find paper organizers not really fitting for their planning activities.
Planning your schedule and activities on paper requires some dedication. However, once you’ve found yourself a perfect notepad, you can experiment with the content and its style as much as you like: use colors, write, rewrite, and overwrite, draw, highlight everything you want with stickers. Just be sure to not get lost in all the creative activity — as it turns out, planning can be creative too.
