Notebooks are a convenience that have retained their relevance in the time of smartphones; they don’t need batteries, their files can never be corrupted and even if you found a way to drop it down multiple stories and break it in half, you can still retrieve your notes. In a time in which people are increasingly keen to maintain some independence and distance from their phone, a notebook can make an incredibly reliable companion. Here are 5 reasons why always having one around is a great idea.
Freedom of Expression
We begin with the simplest point. If you’ve become accustomed to a device based notepad, you may have adjusted to limitations in formatting without realising. Open up a notebook and remember that whatever way you wish to transcribe your thoughts is freely available to you without having to navigate any formatting functions, which most other options won’t have anyway. Using a notepad will bring back your ability to throw thoughts on a page easily with whichever freehand formatting comes naturally, whether it be a list, sprawling brainstorm, an illustration, table or something entirely different.
Seeing a Bigger Picture
As you accumulate a number of thoughts on the pages in front of you, different connections and comparisons may start to appear in a way that would not be possible purely from juggling ideas in the mind. Until you’ve gone through the practice of doing this, it may not seem obvious how useful the practice really is. It covers a lot of the work that the brain would otherwise have to focus energies towards, leaving you to consider your body of thoughts to see what compliments each other, what cancels out or contradicts and what emerges from there.
Processing
Writing is not just a tool of communication and documentation; it is also a way of processing thoughts. The way one engages their brain has an effect on the information being engaged with. Writing something down is already a great start to working on or reinforcing something, but we have developed more passive ways to do this with keyboards to type on which come complete with devices that perform spell checks and auto-correction. The act of using a pen or pencil on paper to save your thoughts has a bigger impact on your ability to retain memory of what they jotted down than typing it on a keyboard. Furthermore, the need to know how you’re going to say something before writing it is such a simple trick for softly clearing and energising the mind.
Remembering
Of course, writing something down is mostly done because you will otherwise likely forget the thought and need a way of reminding yourself. That isn’t the entirety of this point, however. The truth is that sometimes an idea comes at a time when it isn’t realistic or wholly relevant to your current activities or position in life. The vast majority of notebooks are kept around for years and years, so those ideas you jotted down may become something that’s in the right place at the exact right time when you read through your old notebook years down the line.
The Nature of it All
This final point is something of a romantic sentiment and will surely speak to some more than others. A notebook simply allows you something nothing else does with a certain je ne sais quoi. If you always carry it, it’s always ready for you at every point of inspiration and every time you want to express or expand on something. Every time you take it out, a unique interaction between you and your notebook happens. It’s paper or hemp, it’s physical, it’s analogue and over time it will become more and more of a personalised archive bedecked with your own nature. And despite advances in technology, digits on paper is still objectively the best way to give someone your phone number.
About Any Weather Paper
Providing a wide range of waterproof notebooks, waterproof notepaper, and waterproof writing tools, Any Weather Paper is based in Plymouth, UK, and are an official Rite In the Rain UK Stockist. In addition to Rite In The Rain products, Any Weather Paper also offers products from trusted brands such as Ortlieb, and WeatherWriter.
