Why I’ve Gone Back To A Paper Diary
Posted on 08 January 2008 by Sharon
Sometimes you need to admit when you’re wrong - and that’s what I’m doing today. At the start of 2007, I moved my diary online. I set up Google Calendar with a personal calendar, a work calendar, a school calendar, and a holiday calendar.
Yes, the system had some advantages. I could access my calendars wherever I went. However, since I work at home and carry my laptop with when I leave home, this was not quite as useful as it seemed.
As the year went on, I found that I needed to supplement the information on the calendar with little paper notes. Google Calendar is not a good to do list. Pieces of paper would blow away or get lost and that wasn’t very satisfactory. And if the calendar crashed while I was updating, the information wasn’t always up to date. It just didn’t work as well as I had hoped.
So for all those reasons, I decided to go back to a desk diary for my writing work. When a job comes in I note it in my spreadsheet, then I write the deadline in my desk diary. I also write a reminder for two days before - for most projects that’s enough time for me to play catch up if I have to.
So far, it has worked well. I can see the week’s work at a glance, and it’s easy to tell if I am fully booked on a particular day. There’s space for me to make notes and list tasks as well, and it’s easy to cross them off when I’ve done them. Best of all, I no longer have lots of loose paper on my desk.
I still use my online calendar, but I only use it for personal appointments now - and I’ve amended my holiday calendar to show all the major holidays in the places where my clients are located. But for freelance writing, the paper diary looks set to stay.
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January 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Interesting! I hate (and can’t read) my own handwriting, which is why Google calendar works so well for me. But I’m also experimenting with a paper diary (though in my neck of the woods we call them “planners”) because my sister got me a really nice one for Christmas. If I can train myself to write neater and smaller, this might be the solution for me!
January 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Actually I’ve always preferred a paper diary. It’s odd because I am an IT Specialist in an IT company that has moved everything onto electronic means and I must be one of the only ones still ‘writing’ things down!
I prefer paper because you can doodle all over it, and you understand it more because you can really put it in your own words.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
My handwriting is terrible, Rachel, but I’m still giving it a try.
Amy, some things just work better offline. I’m a gadget and tech fan, but in this case I had to give in.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Paper is always easier to look at. I think that’s the big thing about To-Do lists. It doesn’t matter how easy it is to categorize your daily goals by breaking them down into activities which are scheduled according to priority based on your current needs depicted… the easier it is on the eyes, the more you’ll look at it, and the more you’ll stay in touch with what’s going on. Paper is the comfy medium. I think many people definitely feel the same way as you about it.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
After much trial and error, I favor the paper diary too - it’s too confusing to try to do it online - I grew tired of having a whole bunch of windows up at the same time on my computer.
January 8th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I’m a fan of the paper diary/planner too. I like to have my week at a glance. My writing is a mess but I found online versions would stay out of sight too much. I’d forget to log in or load it up and it was easy to miss something planned for the day.
With my desk planner I have the whole week in sight at all times. It is a good prompter to get me back on track with a project. It’s also handier when booking new appointments of projects and it’s far more portable.
I attempted an electronic organizer but so far haven’t found a portable one that worked effectively. So, I’m sticking with my paper desk planner for now.
I haven’t given up on finding a new tech alternative. With the invention of e-books and PDAs, electronic versions of our paper planners/diaries are sure to be right around the corner.
My to-do lists are also on paper although those are typed first and then printed. I have a basic daily to-do list that I like to check off as I go so it is easier to print multiple copies for the days of the week. Additional tasks for the day can be added in the extra lines.
Now it sounds like we’re all really organized, doesn’t it? Don’t let the lists, diary, etc. fool us. It’s still chaos half the time.
January 9th, 2008 at 4:43 am
I’m with you entirely - I have no clue how some people do everything online.
Nearly everything I write online exists in some form on paper first. And organizing my life online? I mean, I need the list in front of me too - I ain’t sitting here all day to remind myself of what needs to be done.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Yes, there’s something about being able to look at a list that helps you to get things done. I know many people keep these online, but that doesn’t work as well for me. As Ashok says, not everyone can sit at the computer all day and yes, it can get confusing, Katherine. I do find that keeping bookmarks online works, though, as I always need to be online when I use them.
When I worked away from home, my PDA was my best friend, Rebecca, but I don’t use it much now that I work at home. And yes, it doesn’t stop the typical chaos of a writer’s desk.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Like you Sharon I have tried doing this online and found that it didn’t work for me. For some reason I either missed things off or put in too much so I too have gone back to paper. It is much easier to keep track of what I am doing - especially as I have taken your advice from everywhere and got myself a domain name and new website which I am setting up.
Sue
January 10th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I did what you did once- transfer stuff online … only to have it be mysteriously deleted. It was a waste of several hours over several days. I never got a reply from tech support as to what happened to all the data I inputed. It was up … and then it was no more.
Never trusted the online calendar again. And its a pain to have to log on before I can see what I need. Nice big paper calendar … LOVE PAPER! (So Recycle, don’t kill anymore trees!)
January 10th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Good luck with your new site, Sue. It’s done wonders for my writing career. It really helps to have a central location where people can find your stuff.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Thanks Sharon, although there is a lot more work involved in this than I thought at first - I’m still learning things about html etc that I didn’t know, but it keeps my mind occupied which is a good thing at the moment.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I use my laptop with OneNote for staying electronically organized and writing; an iPAQ for my calendaring, which I keep either in the cradle on my desk or in my purse; Outlook to manage email and syncs to my iPAQ; and two paper notebooks. Yes, two. A small one for jotting down reminders as I think of them (it often goes with me in my purse) and a larger one that I take to meetings or meet with clients.
My handwriting is horrible, but it doesn’t:
need batteries
take forever to boot
happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time
stop working unexpectedly
I avoid post-its except to label physical paper with next action steps. (Yes, I’m a Getting Things Done fan.) My laptop is pen enabled, but I don’t write neatly enough or small enough for that to be practical.
My filing system works, except when I don’t get around to filing, but that is another problem.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hi Gwen
I like your comment about the handwriting, lol. I sometimes have trouble getting around to filing, and many of the other admin tasks, but I will do better one day.