Moving More Analog

Lately I've been considering more about how I interact with technology. The one thing that I've been bouncing back and forth with most is an app like Obsidian for notes and pen and paper.

For several years now I've been journaling before bed (or some days right after I wake up the next morning). I find it calming to write down what I did each day, what I was thinking, what's on my mind. Life's always so crazy that it feels almost cathartic to just write about my day. For the better part of this time, I've been writing it down by hand in notebooks rather than digitally. For this and for me, there really is something about the act of physical writing that calms me. In case anyone is wondering, my current journal is a LEUCHTTURM1917 120G Edition and I use a Lamy Safari Fountain Pen.

Now I've been extending my use of notebooks for both lifting and my book note taking.

I've used apps to track my lifts in the past. I've used Strong and others, but for a while now, I've been using pen and paper. Since the weights I lift for each session are calculated, apps aren't always able to properly handle calculating what I am targeting each set. They make specialized apps for routines I run or ran in the past, but they're targeted for the specific routine and aren't really general purpose. Enter pen and paper. Nothing specific there. Just list the exercises you want to do, the weight, and boom, you're off. I do use a spreadsheet to help calculate the volume I lift and to help with calculations, but then I transfer what I hope to accomplish each workout to the notebook to enter while I'm lifting. It's certainly better than trying to enter data into spreadsheets on a mobile device, that's for sure. I also have been trying to use less screens and it's easy enough to just note it down in the notebook. The notebooks have definitely outlasted several spreadsheets and routines.

I read a lot of non-fiction. I'm going to sound like a huge nerd here, but I don't care. I've started taking notes about some of the books I've read. It sometimes feels like I'm in school again, but in this case, I get to decide what books I read, and while I rarely don't finish a book I start, I can if I choose to. Anyway, I've been taking notes when I find a tidbit or quote I find interesting or want to remember. I had been doing it in Obsidian, but I recently decided I'd switch to pen and paper for tis as well. More often than not I'm reading before bed and it's another time when I've been trying to avoid screens. Screens are supposedly not so great before bed, plus you're supposed to remember things better when you physically write them down.

The digital world is certainly amazing. I'm writing this on a laptop connected to a nearly unlimited network where I have anything I'd want to know or do at my fingertips. Sometimes though, something physical, something you can touch with your fingers is where it's at.