Writing on Paper in the Digital Age
The paperless future never arrived—analog and digital writing systems coexist. How can we have the best of both worlds? We'll review mediums, techniques, tools, and workflows for using both together.
Course Goals
Paraphrasing Michael Pollan, this is a course about not how-to-do-it but how-to-think-it.
A profound reflection that arises a series of actions.
What analog tools—paper-based writing or drawing systems—should be part of what you do for work, study, or a hobby? What the pros and cons of still using them? Do they still have value? How to integrate them to your digital daily life?
At the end of the course, we'll be able to identify and recognize which analog tools and workflows are still useful along with our digital life and design a better integration of both.
Check Paper: The Unavoidable Interface
Structure
Each session we'll review an inventory of mediums, techniques, tools, and workflows for writing in both, the analog and digital world, contrast them with how each of us use them, and consider alternatives to improve our daily writing practices.
Syllabus / Schedule
Week 1: What is writing for anyway?
What do we need and use writing for? The neuroscience of writing. Communication and memory. Writing, note-taking, drawing, diagramming, mind mapping, doodling…
Week 2: Old and new tools
Blues for the forgotten tools. Analogue gadgets that have survived the digital avalanche. Beyond nostalgia and luddism: the actual importance of writing and drawing on paper.
Week 3: Interactions and workflows
Paper and screen: toward the ideal desk setup. From paper to bits and bits to paper. On velocity, space, brain, and body. Workflows to writing flow.
Artifacts
An inventory or a kit of the paper-based tools that are still useful or important for your profession, job, or hobbies.
A workflow or a process of how to integrate what you produce or create with the analog tools with your digital daily life.
Who Should Sign Up
Anyone who still use paper for writing and note-taking along with apps, smartphones, tablets, and computers, and feels the necessity to have a better integration of both worlds.
Anything Else…
This course was inspired in the positive responses from the readers of the following articles I have wrote.
The best second display you may ever find
This course is for anyone who still uses paper for writing and note-taking along with apps, smartphones, tablets and computers, and is interested in better integrating these two worlds in their own life.
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