Luddite

Luddite: one who opposes technical or technological change.

Today I made the decision to revert to a form of organization and technology I haven’t used for at least ten years: paper and pen. I’ve actually been pondering giving up my multiple, overlapping seldom synchronized electronic forms of organization for several months. What forced me to change, almost in an epiphany, was at the end of the hour I spent today consolidating paper meeting notes and drawings into Outlook tasks and notes with corresponding reminders.

It wasn’t so bad a few years ago. I’ve maintained work and personal Outlooks for years and synchronized them with a PDA as the middleware. Now I use a BlackBerry, have different versions of Outlook and can no longer keep up with personal and professional goals and responsibilities in one place. I stay confused and subsequently frustrated. Slowly, as alluded to, I’ve transitioned back to paper and pen.

What makes today the official transformation from electronic automation to archaic scribbling was my purchase of a binder system. I’ve used them before and found it easy and comfortable. In fact, I’m welcoming back an old friend. I hope we carry on as well as we did before. I’ll let you know how it goes.