A few years ago, I made a great investment in a piece of office machinery. I purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. It scanned documents quickly through its sheet-feeding capability and scans any size from card to A4. My dream of doing away with five filing cabinets was realised. This was a good move and now all the information I had stored in drawers that were rarely opened is now in the cloud and the material is searchable. Not having paper stored physically creates space and the information is closer to hand. Moving these documents into the digital world was a good move. No paper at all? Not quite! Let me explain. I grew up using pen and paper to communicate. Today, there are certain times when I need to use paper. The first is when I create my to-do list. There is something I like about committing to paper with pen. It’s there. It uses my hand. My hand is more connected to my brain when I use paper. I can carry the paper close to my body. It has physical presence. Because of that it is more likely to get my attention. Believe me, I have used all the electronic devices as to-do lists but my brain keeps taking me back to paper.
The second use of paper that I like is when I write into my journal. Every morning I write something into the journal. It is a record. It is more valuable to me than a digital record. It is more likely to have a lasting effect. The journal is a long running account of your plans, your thoughts and everything that comes to you first thing in a morning. As they say, “You have had time to sleep on it”
So I have a love/hate relationship with paper. As a medium between my brain and the output, it is preferred. I am actually dictating this using dictating software but am reading from a handwritten note that I made prior to creating the post. This is closer to my ideal world. I would love to hear from anyone else who has this relationship with paper.
