The Case for Plain Text in a Proprietary World

Whether it’s at home or at work, I almost always have some paper and a pen at my computer.

Paper has a quality that digital devices will never replace. It lets you think in your own way, unrestrained by software, battery power, or language.

Drawing a concept on paper is much faster and more direct. It’s usually messy, temporary, down-to-earth — and that’s exactly what I like about it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s simply a way to develop an idea or keep note of some things.

Often, I use paper like analog RAM. I make todo lists, draw sketches, and write down things that I want to temporarily reference back to. Paper is cheap and can be recycled. When the paper gets full, I transfer the things I still want to keep to a new sheet, then chuck the old one.

Having printed out plans when working on a project is far superior to working from a digital device. A printout can have notes written on it, be drawn over, and modified in any way. Every now and then I print the first version of a design to improve it on paper before I modify it digitally. And sometimes I print out a final version to feel and analyze it physically.

Of course, paper also has major drawbacks. What I’m usually most annoyed with is that I can’t run a digital search for a specific word on a page. You also can’t back paper up as easily as digital files, and do all the other things that are possible with digital data. But that doesn’t mean paper shouldn’t be used. It’s exactly these limitations that make paper an underrated thinking space. If you’re fully immersed in the digital world, try using some paper, you’ll probably find it useful!