Only this for now.
The idea of using a digital tablet like an iPad to take notes has always sounded amazing in theory but always failed in practice for me.
A reddit user sums up the problem well: “[most] say [the iPad] is for productive reasons like journaling and then the next week it becomes a Netflix machine.”
The most enticing value proposition of digital technology is also sometimes its most problematic trait: it presents a virtually unlimited number of things for you to do in an instant. You could take notes… or you could watch a clip, or read an article, or a book, or respond to a message?—?all with the flick of a jittery, indecisive wrist.
And while this should elate us, it actually ends up being a burden.
Perhaps an insurmountable one, at least according to Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice: “Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.”
Ironically sometimes the most liberating thing we can do is introduce some constraint?—?to ruthlessly limit what we will do in a day, or in a sitting. To decide that you’ll read one thing and only that thing, or that you’ll work on a specific project and only that project.
The books available and projects to chip away at are overwhelmingly abundant and the only way to ever enjoy a book or to make meaningful headway on a project is to operate as if, for at least a period in time, it’s the only book or project that exists in your world.
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About me:
I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it.