Think with your hands and the brain will follow
Today, we have literally dozens of different to-do management tools, mind mapping tools, project management tools, note taking apps, templates and ready-made solutions to support the way our minds work.
However, the more I spend time trying different tools (and I have tried dozens of them over the years), the more I keep going back to paper as the killer app for thinking. Paper gets an unfairly bad rep in a digital world. Some argue that it’s because it represents wasted resources, others that it’s too slow for how the world is moving these days. Both fair, but as with any ‘truth’ it’s only one side of it.
After all, digital tools are making an equally significant impact on the environment, and claiming that speed is a competitive advantage is like claiming we sell things cheaper than the next shop. In other words, there will always be someone quicker, until we’re all so fast we can barely keep up with ourselves. What‘s the next degree of speed after ‘instant’?
On top of this, we sometimes seem to forget that these tools are just that — tools. They exist to do a job, they’re not meant to be the job. Remember last time you tried to reorganise your entire life in a whole new app, wasting quite a few hours to get it just right and then quitting a couple of weeks later because it’s too much to manage? Exactly.
I’m not saying I’m against digital tools — I use Trello and 80% of Google’s solutions to pretty much organise my thoughts and life — but we must get better at recognising their role in this relationship. And part of that might involve admitting that these tools are great to help organise our thoughts, but might not be the best way to kickstart the process in the first place. Have you ever tried brainstorming work in progress ideas in a PowerPoint with other people? I have. It’s awful. And it’s not just because it’s PowerPoint.
Paper, on the other hand, is a great tool for thinking with your hands. That is, to explore, aimlessly, until thoughts slowly drip into your head and you capture them as you go. Sure, you can also do that with a computer, but research proves that handling a hard copy is better for our concentration levels, conceptual understanding and retention. And these, I’d argue, are far better competitive advantages to pursue in an age of automation, powered by machines — which, by the way, we cannot compete with on speed.
Think more with your hands. The brain will follow.