Immediately, I began dreaming of what to do: go back to a simply-bound, classic Moleskine planner, get a rainbow of brand new colored pens and get to work scribbling my days! Would I regret turning my back on efficient in the stead of quirky? Would I ever look back on the color-drenched cacophony of activities I was about to begin? Would it help me stay on top of tasks, events and appointments?
I'm certainly not the first to contemplate this! There are dozens of articles on the reasons to switch off the digital and return to the analog. Some of the most compelling reasons include: you remember better when you write something by hand; having a tangible work surface gives inspiration; and my own interpretation... colored pens are fun!
My digital planner had no room (without being frighteningly awkward) for random notes about how a particular thing made me feel. Emoji can be sadly limiting in this way. Though my writing has sunk from quite nice to somewhat/mostly legible, it was still my own - unique, reflective, and fluid.
It had been more than five years since my last Moleskine! Five years had passed with no small journal of life's banal and powerful events on my office shelf. Five years where efficiency reigned without a daily nudge to fill in the white space with some of the soft stuff that makes a life.
So, I resolved to employ a paper planner for the year ahead, using colors to separate and organize, but leaving room for random bursts of different hues just for fun. A good part of the process that I'd missed was the ability to flip pages and gauge what was ahead, as well as the nostalgia of looking back at what had already taken place. But perhaps the most special byproduct, for me, would be the white spaces that my compulsion for completeness wouldn't leave be. If there was a block of untouched page, I would have to tag it. With words or a pitiful drawing or a big happy face or sad face, for that matter.
I can always tell when I plunk down hard-earned money for something that I am committed. So I waved buh-bye to my digi-cal and embraced the sort of journals used by Van Gogh and Hemingway and more than a few Silicon Valley innovators. Far from being a Luddite, I would rather converse with random strangers than play Candy Crush, have realized that a snail mail note gets tacked on the fridge the way an email never would, and that sometimes the long way getting somewhere is worth the effort. If it means I will make time to write more, then I am prepared to buy my inner-child all the crayons she wants.
