Paper Trauma

I am a minimalist in life and own very few things, but one of the few things I always buy when I move to a new place is 20 stick-on-the-wall whiteboards, and over 1000 sheets of paper, and this is a big quality of cognition improvement.

(For those of you who don't know, you can get very cheap whiteboard that stick on the wall entirely via static, and are trivially removable/repositionable. Here's the amazon UK and US brands that I use.)

I've also found sharpies much better than normal pens when using paper with someone. I find it gets us out of the school mode of 'we must write down all the words' and into the playful diagrams/explanation mode where 'I write down only the useful things'. More like note-taking than work.

I suspect it's more about trivial inconveniences and failure to "summon sapience". I was homeschooled and don't think I'm particularly traumatized about paper, and I love it when I remember to use it, but I have to stop and remember that it's a good idea, and then go get and use it, which doesn't always happen.

MORE ATTRACTIVE WHITEBOARD SUBSTITUTES

For a while I have been wanting something on the wall by my bed where I could write stuff down (this is easier for me than typing it into an app, and keeps it visible). This post motivated me to get started on acquiring something, so thank you for that!

I decided a whiteboard would suit my needs better, but the problem is that most whiteboards are REALLY UGLY and I DO NOT want them in my room. So I did some poking around on ways to make whiteboards more attractive looking, and here are some results:

-Glass is dry erasable (duh! I knew that, but hadn't previously thought about how to turn that into a nice dry erase board). Something like decorative paper or burlap in a nice frame (with a glass surface) works well as a pretty dry erase board. The plastic material that's sometimes in frames also works, but not as well. You can also just use any piece of glass (old window, glass table top, etc) and mount it on your wall. Or put an empty frame on your wall so that the background color is your paint color.

-There exists dry erase paint that makes walls dry erasable. It is a clear coat, so you can keep whatever color wall you like. My friend has this, but it is moderately hard to wipe off because they didn't sand down the wall first (so it's a mottled surface).

-Metal is generally dry erasable (but uncertain about sealants that might be used on various metals), and you can get it in sheet metal form to make a dry erase board. Galvanized steel sheet metal is ALSO magnetic, if that's useful to you. It's also sharp though, so put it in a frame or whatnot.

-Tin ceiling tiles are really decorative, come in lots of colors, and some have a big flat space in the middle ( like this ). I am uncertain how the sealant or coloring (some have something swiped or mottled on) would effect its dry eraseability though, and the internet doesn't seem to have answers. I expect the untreated one should work just fine, but then you don't get the color choices. I just bought a five dollar sample though, and will tell you how it works.

-Plastic sheet covers are also dry eraseable. I wouldn't want them on my wall, but might be useful to keep in mind.

This is an interesting book. I haven't read the entire thing, but what I have read fits with my experience of compulsive note-taking in a notebook that now has 5 years worth of history: Notebooks are great for generating and aggregating ideas, but if you're not careful, you can get paralyzed by perfectionistic tendencies that make it hard to actually do things (especially if you have tendencies towards perfectionism to begin with). However, I'm gradually getting better at solving this problem. (Worst case, I'll finally take a careful read over the "ideas for overcoming perfectionism" page in my notebook :P)

I've curated this post for three reasons:

• I and other people I know have seen significant improvements by using paper more
• It's a simple yet excellent example in the important category of 'rationality improvements via environment change'
• The post is short and sweet.

The shower is a particularly good place for the sort of thinking that benefits from paper, except most people don't have paper in there. AquaNotes (small waterproof notepads) are good--most of the group houses I've been to have them now--but too small. I tried a few other kinds of waterproof paper, and TerraSlate paper seems to work, and is available in sizes up to A3.

I think a major improvement from when I had aversion to writing in paper was to realize that paper can be thrown away after use, no need to conserve useless half thoughts.

Considering the amount of engagement and positive anecdotes people are putting into this; It appears to me to be evidence that writing things down (in some format) is really helpful. As in, helpful enough that if you are not already writing down your thoughts and ideas you should at the very least take five and come up with an easy way to try it out. This is one of those things that's extremely low cost, with a lot of benefit. Please take the low-hanging fruit.

One more anecdote for the pile: I found carrying and using paper very unwieldy for a long time and recently bought a small messenger bag to carry it all for not much money. This holds a journal, folded up large paper, four differently colored pens, and whatever other miscellanea I happen to have on me. This has completely negated my issues with using paper in a productive way on a daily basis.

I think this single technique can't be stressed enough. Writing serves as a kind of exorcism for me. An idea will possess me like a demon for days or weeks, forcing me to run through the same argument or check details again and again until I write it on the page. At that point it crystallizes into something real and external. I have the sense that it's almost impossible to build arguments of more than three or four inferential steps without writing, because the first steps will continue to haunt and possess you until they are exorcised onto the page.

For me, I'm fairly confident it's that paper just feels so much less convenient than typing. I am fairly quick to open up a text editor to help me think, and (less, but not much less) quick to do it in a group context.

But I type way faster than I write (perhaps if I wrote more I'd be better at it?)

The main advantage of paper is for diagrams. I agree with Ben's comment elsewhere about sharpies being good to get you into a diagram mindset, although then you need even larger paper to have enough room.

For reference: Andrew Critch's post arguing for using a large notebook to think.

I use index cards extensively as an exobrain. I like that I can rearrange them on a desk or table as I'm thinking, sorting ideas into different categories, and I also like that I can idly flip through them while on a bus or when standing in line. A couple hundred will fit in a pocket without being folded, they form a stiff enough surface that I can write on them without needing to find a desk or wall to write on, and they don't give people the sense that I'm not paying attention to them the way taking notes on a phone does. They're also good at forcing me to ruthlessly prioritize information since there's a limited amount of space, but if you need more space then about ten index cards gives you the same available area as a normal sheet of printer paper. The ones I use have lines on one side for writing, and blank space on the other side for drawing. Oh, and you can dog-ear or tear them in certain patterns to allow quickly finding certain categories of cards in the stack.

In the evening when I get ready for bed, I take my cards and lay any new ones I care about preserving on my desk and take a quick picture of them with a smartphone.

On problem with paper is that if you start writing down things on paper you start having to manage the paper. It's physical, so it starts taking up physical space in a way a file or Evernote note doesn't.

I also have paper and pen with me all the time. A lot of people are trying to convince me to go digital - including my son - but I have yet to be convinced that there is a way to improve my workflow. Which is this:

• take notes and sketches making use of however much paper is available and being creative in size, positioning and alignment of text. Quickly.
• Clearly this doesn't digitize well. It will be ugly, hard to read and lack all the context that you have in your mind at that time. After all it is adding to your memory not replacing it.
• So the obvious and necessary next step is to convert these notes into actually useful longer-term representations like diagrams, summaries, tasks in a task tracker, calendar entries,...

Until someone creates an app that automates at least some of these things while creating the sketches I am usually worse of with a digital solution:

• It is not as readily available and always on.
• It disincentivizes the next step: "I will convert it later" (at which time you have lost of your memory context)

My minimum requirements are really

• always on (incredibly, eink readers typically do not preserve the last page on power off!!)
• recognize handwritten text
• convert lines into appropriate geometric forms (rectangles, ellipses - in any orientation)
• convert text blocks to calendar entries, tickets, mails,...

Maybe there is an app for that but I have yet to find it. It should be there as these things are all solved, right?

I just got a RocketBook Everlast and it's good at motivating me to write things down. The ability to write things down that I then upload easily to Evernote reduces the guilt of throwing paper away (uploading to OneNote or Dropbox is also possible). Depending on how neatly you write this means that your notes are also searchable and continued advances in text recognition will only increase the searchability.

The fact that the RocketBook is then reuseable by simply removing the content with a wet towel means that no unnecessary paper will pill up.

Moved to frontpage (only just noticed that it wasn't).

I notice that the size of my "workspace" (computer screen size, paper size, whiteboard size) contributes to a vague sense of how much I'm supposed to output. It's a sort of "I've got a 4'x8' notebook, so this has to be a 4'x8' thought."

More realisticly, it's probably me going "ugh, I don't like flipping between pages to gather thoughts, so I'm going to try and make it fit on one page."

Main point: When I get bigger paper, I more often have bigger thoughts. I recently did some deep self-reflection, and used a whole notebook of 18'x24' which was tremendously helpful.

There are now tablet apps (e.g. GoodNotes or OneNote on the iPad) that allow you to have huge virtual paper (due to zoom in feature) and a wide variety of virtual writing tools. It also allows select, copy+paste (instead of re-writing something repetitive). Also solves the preservation of notes problem some people care about. I highly recommend trying it.

Have any of you tried Wacom Tablet + Inkscape?

It's (nearly) everything people have asked for above, and my favorite way to think using System 3, as some call it.

I've had a similar love as Critch for large canvases to dump my thoughts in. This usually meant desks in the library that I would messily (and unashamedly) scribble on from top to bottom, then losing them the next day. When I really wanted to save those notes I ended up taking some hasty pictures (that I never revisited because tiny).

But with Inkscape, consider - infinte canvas and resolution, combinations of text, freehand and other vector graphics, zoom & pan for focusing or looking at the big picture, permanent digital storage (and little environmental waste), colors (like others have said, this one changes everything, but especially so without trivial inconveniences and no penalties on experimentation), and my personal favorite - guaranteed neatness, with the ability to group and move objects around. (I really love the fact that all strokes automatically become objects because I find it very difficult to keep tidy while in a manic frenzy; this lets you draw fast and edit later, as in writing.)

The only drawback is that it isn't nearly as portable. And that I can't seem to dot the i's in freehand sometimes because vector pens don't make points.

I've started carrying around a small, thin notebook in my back pocket. It's been very nice as a memory aid. Very useful to capture simple things like shopping list items or phone numbers or general reference information that I know I will need to use in the future.

I am always intensely skeptical of people who don't bring notebooks to meetings. Sometimes I'm the only one present with a notebook. What, you think you're going to just remember the twenty details and action items that were agreed on?

Also, I feel like people should snowclone "X is not a special snowflake" more. "My textbook is not a special snowflake [and I may buy a better one]" (it really sticks if you have to offload a hundred such textbooks), "my pen is not a special snowflake [and I can write with it, dammit]", "my notes are not special snowflakes [and don't have to be perfect or legible]". Just imagine things being manufactured , as in there being hundreds of thousands of them.

I suspect that for many people outside of our community (particularly those who veer towards the neurotypical side of things), the biggest cause for aversion is that using paper in this way is considered to be "weird".

In social settings, I suspect that these people don't want to be viewed as weird. When you're alone, I suspect that the cause is more subtle. I suspect that there is some part of the brain that thinks, "if you do this, then I'll be forced to think of you as a weird person, and that will lower my self-esteem, which is painful, so please don't act like a weirdo".

I think my aversion to using more paper is more from a 'wasting resources/materials' / 'environmentalism' feeling. Just wanted to throw in another data point.

Thank you for this post! I like writing on paper (I don't think I'm negatively influenced by school actually, and it definitely helps me think) but I have an aversion to it because keeping it around is such a hassle. When I do write something down on paper I intend to digitalize it/scan it, but I don't actually do that. I'm already stuck with ten notebooks full of stuff; I don't want to accumulate more.

I manage to convert lecture notes into Anki cards though, so I suppose it's partially having a plan, and practicing.

Maybe a whiteboard would help, too, because I can't keep it in the first place. I should look into that.

Does anyone have additional ideas of how to get used to paper?

I think that if a person is at all inclined to collect things, paper is essential. (Although I draw the line at carrying a pencil - it's more trustworthy than a pen when it's raining or something, but I never got the trick of keeping my pencils sharp). It actually works just fine for long-term memory, too :)

Do you think making a .txt file in a notepad executable would be a suitable alternative?

...although whenever I carry some equipment beyond just paper and pen (ruler, compass, eraser, or worse - a binder), reaching for paper is more of a chore. I need to trick myself into "oh that's Emergencies Stuff, I don't need it, I'm just being responsible".