Thursday, February 23, 2012

Long Live the Legal Pad


Current wisdom says that to manage information overload, we should all go paperless.  I’ve made many digital conversions that have been life changing.  I’m devoted to my online calendar (love those alerts!), I never misplace the shopping lists on my phone, and I’ve happily ditched unfoldable paper maps.  But I’ll never abandon the legal pad.

Yes, I can type notes on my computer or phone, but there’s something about a blank legal pad that opens up a world of possibilities.  Ideas flow, plans are hatched, projects are born.  Maybe it's that I grew up writing by hand, not typing from toddlerhood, that my mind connects more closely with a pen than a keyboard.  

Now, full disclosure: This post is being typed, not handwritten.  Why?  Because it’s flowing easily, and I can pretty much download it from my head to my laptop.  Where the legal pad comes in is with stuff that’s confounding, bewildering, or otherwise gobsmacking.  I.e, when I’m stuck.  It’s then that I need those yellow lined pages in my hand, coaxing me to put down something, pray, anything.  A blank computer screen can paralyze me with its incessantly blinking cursor.  The legal pad gently prods me to get started.

The ideas that are keepers eventually get typed into a computer file.  Most of my handwritten notes end up in the recycling bin.  But it's the act of writing them down that resets my intentions and gets me going on that new, hopeful path. 

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