Jared Newman at Fast Company rediscovers paper note-taking (because Field Notes):

I’ve never been much of a paper person. Although I did carry around a reporter’s notebook for a newspaper job in the pre-iPhone era, I prefer to file my thoughts away in digital form, where they can be categorized, backed up online, and accessed from any device.

By contrast, I love stationery and notebooks and have dallied, on and off for over twenty years, with ink-on-paper for my note-taking. But, for many of the same reasons Newman gives, it doesn’t tend to keep. Plus, I type infinitely faster than I write, and seldom struggle to decipher my own typing.

However—

Perhaps best of all—at least for me—is that you can’t delete what you’ve written in ink. I’ve tried using an iPad with an Apple Pencil for handwritten notes and have reviewed a few digital writing tablets, and they always feel counterproductive to me. As an obsessive self-editor, I can’t resist the erase and undo tools that digital notepads provide. The only option with paper is to forge ahead.

This resonated deeply. I, too, am an “obsessive self-editor”—for me, writing and editing are inextricably linked. (Or, as I first wrote, the act of editing is inextricably linked to the act of writing.) I’ll often spend more time editing a piece than I writing it, as I get bogged down on how to express this thought here rather than getting the broader ideas out.

When I use an iPad and Apple Pencil, I end up with the worst of both worlds: a slower, harder-to-decipher output that I still endlessly edit as I write—truly a hell-on-earth scenario.

I’m going to experiment with drafting a few future pieces on paper. Will I find it “relaxing” and “less stressful,” as Newman did, or be frustrated by my inability to refine as I go? It’s been years since I wrote more than a few sentences by hand. I’m as worried about cramps in my hand as I am in my writing style.