Pen and paper may be hovering somewhere between retro and extinct these days, but Kevin Purdy, for one, feels that there is still a place for ballpoints and notepads in our lives. Writing on Fast Company, Purdy highlights tasks he believes are better suited to exercising your (probably rapidly deteriorating) handwriting:

• Lightning-strike ideas. “Carrying a notebook with you at all times is cheap and easy,” writes Purdy, and, according to Marina Martin, a business efficiency consultant quoted in the article, “even the most fluid, thoughtful electronics introduce too much friction into the process of thinking, writing down, then thinking further out.” Pen and paper is better for recall as well. “By committing your thought to paper, you’re also doing more to lock it into place,” writes Purdy. “Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, has the brain scans to prove it.”
• Better to-do lists. “The role of paper is ‘changing from information recording and archiving, to a more temporary role of containing transient information,’ says Jenny Englert, senior cognitive engineer at Xerox,” writes Purdy, who continues, “In other words, paper still makes for a great to-do list.”
• Jobs and events that seem overwhelming. “One thing that reliably helped very smart students with major test anxiety was writing about their anxieties to ‘off-load’ them. And that was very specifically noted as ‘writing,’” says Purdy, citing the work of psychologist Sian Beilock, an expert on choking under pressure.

Purdy’s article is lengthy and well worth a read, going into much more detail about why these situations are best handled with old-fashioned tools, but a rough outline of his argument is a great spark to get gadget lovers thinking about what situations, if any, still call for a pen.

Personally, my to-do lists have long ago gone electronic and I’m perfectly happy with that, but I agree that handwriting still channels emotions better, whether as a diary-like anxiety-control exercise or in that supremely old school gesture, the personal note or letter.

When, if ever, do you still reach for a pen?

At Net:Work 2011 this week we will discuss how the way we work is being transformed by breakthrough tools. The event will be held in San Francisco on Thursday, Dec. 8. 

Image courtesy of Flickr user ElvertBarnes

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Printing is still an important part of every web worker’s workflow, and though it’s quite arcane, much of our communication and documentation is still conducted via a paper trail. Not only does this leave piles of paper to manage, there’s the economic cost of all of that ink and paper and, importantly, there’s also an environmental cost involved with printing that we all bear as a society.

In a recent issue of Wired UK, Thomas Counsell from the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing speculated that up to two percent of greenhouse gases are a result of paper consumption, largely driven by the production and disposal of new and used printed paper.

Counsell’s research is focused on technologies that use a combination of ultrasound and chemical solvents to remove toner from printed documents, enabling paper to reused. Though Counsell’s research is still very much in the labs and somewhat fantastical, there are alternatives, available today, that can help us make environmental and financial judgments about the paper and ink that we use.

The Paper-Less Alliance‘s web site not only provides handy advice on how to reduce paper consumption, but also provides free software, in collaboration with PaperCut, to help individuals and companies visualize their paper consumption in terms of a carbon footprint, trees, energy use and financial impact.

GreenPrint offers an inexpensive software solution that adds a new printer profile to Macs and PCs. As documents are sent to the “virtual” GreenPrint printer, they’re analyzed, and attention is drawn to wasteful or unnecessary areas, which users can then choose to remove from the final printout.

For example, many documents often have a page with just a few words or lines on the last page; GreenPrint automates the discovery of such inefficiencies.

Adobe’s Tools for Sustainable Design are yet to be released, but were previewed by Adobe’s CTO, Kevin Lynch last Spring at ETech 2009. Lynch demonstrated some great demos, including:

• optimizing a box pattern to use less paper
• tools that show the toxicity and chemical impact of various ink colors
• embedded guidelines from organizations such as Greenpeace
• calculating the number of trees or soy plants required for a print job
• suggesting digital rather than hard copy outputs

More recently, designer Matthew Robinson conducted a somewhat unscientific project entitled “Measuring Type,” which explored how much ink commonly utilized typefaces tended to use. Robinson discovered that Garamond had the highest ink efficiency.

Though I tend not to print much anyway, preferring the flexibility of digital documents, these four initiatives have forced me to understand the true cost of printing and show that software can help us make value judgments about environmental issues.

A year ago we saw controversy and ridicule around one researcher’s carbon calculation of a Google search, yet our various applications and tools still aren’t doing a great job of reporting their environmental impact to users. As we see software emerge to help us understand the environmental impact of printing, I hope we’ll start to see other categories of software and hardware reveal their environmental impact and cost.

Coincidentally, the Daily Beast just published a great article on the advantages and disadvantages of going paper-free, entitled “My Paperless Life.”

Are you mindful of the environmental impact of your printing? Which strategies do you employ to reduce waste?

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Those thoughts can be as simple as “don’t forget to email Pete about that invoice” or as intricate as a new angle on an idea I’d been working on before. They’re basically the random things my brain spews out while I’m trying to focus on something else. I know I’m not alone — a lot of people experience the same thing.

Through a long process of trial and error, I’ve found that the best way to deal with these random thoughts — thoughts that are important and valuable, but unrelated to the task I’m working on — is to note them down. This way, I can be sure I won’t forget them, but I also reduce their interruption into my focus on other tasks.

For this reason, the handiest tool in my home office is a pen and paper. I’ve tried using online tools to note down my ideas, but I find that going online to add a task to my to-do list is like opening a door to the world: The temptation to check the news, weather, or my email is often too great to resist.

The problem with noting these random — but important — tasks in something as simple as my text editor is that, as a result of my scattered approach to work, I usually end up with so many apps open, and so many things going on, that I can forget I have my list hidden behind five other panes. Sometimes, I have trouble finding it at all.

My pen and paper are always at my elbow, so I don’t have any difficulty finding them. I like the fact that they’re physically separate from my computer: the place where I do my work. That physical separation helps me mentally divorce these thoughts from what I’m doing, which prevents them from distracting me from the task at hand.

My notepad is my “random thoughts” area, so I treat it as such; my tasks lists are online, well-planned and carefully formulated. But my notepad is a space that’s dedicated to shards of thoughts, germs of ideas that I know need more work and attention before I can do something with them.

And I do give them that attention — sooner or later. Usually, I try to take a look at my list when I get to a break point in what I’m doing. I can take the easy-to-do stuff, prioritize it, and add it to my task list immediately. And I can check my schedule to see when I can set aside half an hour for thinking more about the new angle for that previously concepted idea. Perhaps I’ll also take the opportunity to find my brainstorming notes for that idea and add the new thought to them, ensuring that I keep all the thoughts about that project together.

Once I’ve sorted through the items on my page, I turn it over and start a new page: a clean slate for new random thoughts that may occur in the next work period. So, my pen and notepad are the handiest tools in my home office.

What about you? What remote working tool do you value most?

Photo credit: stock.xchng user RAWKU5.

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If you’re in the mood to try paper, one site well worth a visit is D*I*Y Planner. Started by Douglas Johnston and continued by a passionate community of paper-lovers, this is a great source for downloadable templates (in a variety of formats including PDF), all under a Creative Commons license that lets you use them as much as you want.

The D*I*Y Planner site contains a good variety of templates in various sizes, from “hipster PDA” on up to full-sheet. The v3.0 Core Package, for example, has 87 different templates you can print, from personal information to calendars to project brainstorming to trip diary to shopping list and beyond. And if the Core Package doesn’t satisfy you, there are dozens of other templates contributed by users of the site.

Couple these templates with some decent cardstock, a good paper cutter, and a binder (or a binder clip), and you’ve got your own perfect, customizable paper planner. The only drawback is that the site is currently quite slow to serve pages. Fortunately, once you get the downloads you want, this is a one-time cost.

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Unfortunately, this can be an annoying process, thanks to the bad match between “attractive and ad-laden HTML layout” and “useful printed record.” That’s where PrintWhatYouLike comes in. This simple (and free) service has one purpose: to allow you to customize the contents of a web page before you print it.

Using PrintWhatYouLike is easy. Visit their home page (or use their bookmarklet) and put in the URL that you want to print. The page will open within a PrintWhatYouLike frame. Then use their selection tools to start trimming. You can easily get rid of backgrounds and images, but you can also select any other HTML element on the page and make it go away. When you’re satisfied, just click Print and you get your nice clean paper record.

I’d like to see them add “copy” as well as “print”, for times when I want a clean digital record. But even as is, the service is useful enough to warrant giving it a bit of bookmarklet space in my browser.

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Doodle while you plan

With a pack of multi-colored gel pens and this 8 Days-A-Week Doodle Planner available from See Jane Work, you’ll be all ready to doodle your plans and dreams each week as you plan out your days. “8 days a week” means it shows Monday through Sunday plus Someday, so you have room to write things you want to get done as you have a spare moment. The Doodle part of it means you get blank pages interspersed with the weekly schedules to draw pictures, do a mind map of your week, or take random notes.

Manage recurring events

If you have many recurring weekly or monthly appointments (a weekly team telecon, kids’ soccer practice each Tuesday and Thursday, monthly status reports), you might like the WeekDate calendar. It uses a layered design so you can write monthly or weekly appointments just once yet see them with each week’s schedule. It’s available in a portable planner version or a monthly wall calendar.

Make a daily sticky note

I love the SmartDate Daily Adhesive Notes from russell+hazel. For $12, you get three 50-sheet pads of Post-It style notes with hourly time slots for scheduling and room for a to do list at the bottom. Use these to make a daily plan from your digital calendar — stick it right where you can see exactly what you need to do each day.

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And of paper systems, along with my Moleskine notebook, index cards are my favorite. They’re cheap, they come in stacks, and they’re infinitely adaptable.

How can using index cards keep me organized, you ask, ever so quizzically (almost mockingly)? I’ve already got the ultimate web apps to do that?

Glad you asked. Here are just 20 things you can do with the ever-handy index card.

1. Make a to-do list. Probably the most obvious, but what’s great about using index cards for this is that it forces you to be concise. I write my top 3 Most Important Things to accomplish today on my Today list.

2. Take notes. I’m in a meeting with someone, and need a handy medium to take notes … so I whip out a blank card and keep bullet-point notes. Later, I’ll transcribe any necessary actions to my action lists and file the card.

3. Create a PDA. By now the Hipster PDA is pretty famous among productivity circles. It’s a way to keep all the info you need with you anywhere you go, using only index cards and either a binder clip or a rubber band to hold it together. Very handy.

4. Make context lists. In the world of Getting Things Done, context lists are central to organizing tasks. You can create a card for each context — computer, home, errands, etc. And the cool thing: unlike other organizing systems for context lists, with index cards you can place the context card where you need it. In other words, the @Home card is at your home, the @Computer card is next to your computer, the @Errands card can be taken with you.

5. Keep track of projects. There are a million ways of keeping track of all your projects. But few as simple as writing a list of them on an index card. And if you need to expand, you can create a card for each project that needs an outline.

6. Create a crazily obsessed organization system. Personally, I love this one: POIC (Pile of Index Cards). Created by a Japanese guy obsessed with organization, he took GTD to the next level. It’s a bit much for me, but the fetish-ness that he brings to the index card is just wonderful.

7. Create a novel. One card at a time. Nabokov, most famously, wrote entire novels on index cards, composing the novels in bits and ordering them into a book. But other writers have used similar methods using index cards.

8. Leave a note for someone. I like to write notes on a card when I’m forwarding a document or delegating an assignment, clarifying the actions that need to be done to the recipient.

9. Create a quick reminder. Need to remember to do something in the morning? Write it down on a card and place it somewhere you’ll never forget. I like to write down a reminder while I’m on the go, one per card, and then toss it in my Moleskine. When I get to the office or home, I just transcribe the reminders to the appropriate list (or do them immediately).

10. Make your life’s short list. Want to figure out how to simplify your life? Make a card with the 4-5 most important things in your life — your short list. Then focus your life on those things, eliminating all else. By putting this short list on a small card, you can post it somewhere visible and keep those priorities in mind, always.

11. Trick out your Hipster PDA. The regular version not enough? Add a Levinger Pocket Briefcase and some cool printed templates.

12. Organize your research. Regular notes not good enough? Use this system to keep things organized, geeky and useful.

13. Flick them at people in meetings. Ninja-star style. This might not go over too well in some corporate cultures. Be prepared for retaliation.

14. Develop consensus. The Card Carousel technique is actually an interesting way for a group to share ideas and come to a decision.

15. Organize your bills. Create a card for each bill, writing the name of the bill at the top. When you pay the bill, create an entry on the card. This way, you have a running log of all the bills you pay.

16. Doodle. Bored at a meeting? Use a blank card to doodle. Or if you’re more artistic than I am (and it would be hard not to be), you can use it as a mini-sketch pad. Just don’t let your boss see the sketch you did of him in his underpants.

17. Keep recipes. An old-fashioned use for index cards, to be sure, but one that works well. A card is perfect for a recipe, and if you keep them in a handy box, you’ve got them all organized alphabetically, for quick access when your kids are crying from hunger and you can’t remember the Stroganoff recipe.

18. Make a paper airplane. Not as light and far-flying as a model made from lighter paper, but cute nonetheless. Again, another great diversion for those weekly staff meetings. Bonus points: write love notes on them.

19. Flash cards. My kids use these to study for tests. They work well.

20. Origami. OK, I admit that I don’t know how to do this. But how cool would that be?

21. Shopping lists. Keep one posted on the fridge, jot down things as you run out of them, and take it with you on your shopping trip.

22. Book lists. I like to keep two book lists: one is a running list of books I’ve read, and another a list of books I want to read. When I hear of a good book, I add it to the list.

23. Handy log. Want to keep track of your spending, or eating, or anything else? Keep it on an index card, which you can carry wherever you go.

24. Organize your entire home. GTD not overboard-organized enough for you? Try the SHE system (Sidetracked Home Executives). They use index cards to organize everything: tasks that need to be completed on a daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal basis, cleaning, decluttering, correspondences and more.

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