From Digital to Deliberate: My Return to Analog Productivity

Last year I gave a presentation about using digital tools to enhance productivity in academic medicine.  I showed three specific areas in academics where having a digital assistant can level up your game.  These are specifically in the areas of time management, research management, and idea management.  The full lecture can be viewed here.

Video: Digital Tools for Success in Academic Medicine

While there are advantages that can be had with digital tools, since giving that talk I have pivoted away from workflows reliant primarily on digital tools and toward a more analog life.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still very much a proponent of the right digital tool in the right place.  But as a non-digital native, I have found returning to the simpler life of pen and paper more than just nostalgically refreshing.

The journey toward analog living started in January 2024 when I participated in the DEF Reset - a month-long discipline challenge hosted by one of my life mentors - Jocko Willink.  At the time I found myself floundering personally and professionally.  Overwhelmed by the knives edge balancing act of personal and professional responsibilities, I found that I began accumulating digital clutter in the various tools that were supposed to be making my life easier and better.  The net effect was increasing levels of stress, anxiety, and frustration as I struggled to maintain mastery of all of the digital demands on my attention resulting in decreasing levels of productivity and effectiveness.

Part of the discipline challenge entailed identifying a limited set of top priorities on quarterly, weekly and daily basis, writing them down, and then executing on these priorities.  What did I find?  Suddenly, my projects and priorities came into focus and my to do list began supporting things that were important, not just servicing a random assortment of tasks that compete for my attention.  What made the difference?  It was one part method (prioritize and execute) coupled with one part means (literal pen and paper).

Though I have experienced great benefit from certain digital tools (like obsidian), since that time I have continued my transition to analog forms of time management and idea capture.  I have found inspiration through the influence of individuals like Peter McKinnon, Ryder Carroll, Matt Ragland.  I have come to see that there are certain advantages to returning to analog productivity tools.

Advantages of Analog

Less Overwhelming – Digital capture of information can easily become overwhelming.  It is easy to collect vast quantities of random entries and data point leading to problems of organization and recall on demand.  Additionally, there are multiple ways that digital tools seek to capture your attention - whether it is the constant barrage of emails, the endless list of to-dos, adding metadata, or the incessant pinging of alerts and push notifications.  All serve as a reminder of unmet expectations.  The simplicity provided by pen and paper can lead to less overwhelming data management.  As I have moved to keeping a physical day planner, I have found my list of things to do less overwhelming and more inspiring.  I find that it is a representation of my intentions, rather than a long list of possible things that I need to do.

Less Distracting - The phone, computer and iPad are inherently distracting.  This is in part by due to their overwhelming power and but also due to the addictive potential intentionally designed into these devices.  As such, it is easy to bounce from one app to another while on the computer following a fleeting (and probably reasonably irrelevant train of thought).  In short, swipes beget swipes.  It is easy to find yourself swept into the vortex of digital distractions.  Analog notebooks on the other hand have one purpose.  And there is only one thing you can do.  When your notebook is open, it is just you, your pen, and a blank page.

More Flexible - Digital tools are generally designed to do a certain task or act in a certain way.  As result, you are often constrained to operate within the context designed by the app creator.  Even with more generic and open format applications it can be difficult to easily integrate all of the different formats of information that you may want to capture. With pen and paper, you are generally only constrained by your own imagination.  Text can live next to sketches, diagrams, and random doodling.

Durable Record of Achievement - One aspect of digital tools that I discussed in my lecture was the idea of future-proofing your notes archive.  Computer and phone applications come and go.  And if you are not careful, you can put a lot of time and effort in a vault only to find that it is stranded when you change applications.  While there are strategies that can be used to mitigate this as a problem and migrate data, an analog notebook is the ultimate in future-proofed idea management.  When your format is pen and paper, you can easily pull a notebook back off the shelf and revisit previous entries.

Less Reliance on Tech - Last year we had a tornado rip through our neighborhood resulting in the internet and power being out for a week.  Fortunately, we still had cell service.  But living in a valley without line-of-site with the closest cell tower, our cell service at home is poor for anything other than calls.  The net result?  Anything that required internet connection to work was essentially non-functional.  And any digital tools or assets not stored natively on my computer or phone suddenly didn't work.  My notebook and pens on the other hand don't rely on internet, much less electricity.  They will function during sunny days and stormy days.

These are just a few of the advantages of analog productivity.  This is not to say that there is no benefit to using digital tools.  Certainly, there is a lot of power that can be leveraged through linking, tagging and searching.  While my productivity ecosystem will still include certain digital tools (particularly obsidian), I have enjoyed beginning to free myself from complete digital domination of my life.