I’ve had a notebook on my desk for a few years. In today’s world, writing by hand is objectively slow.

I can type with all ten fingers. Reasonably fast. But I can’t stop at a keyboard the same way I can with a pen. Something about holding it switches my brain into a different mode — I slow down, thoughts clarify. That doesn’t happen when I’m staring at a screen.

It’s also a useful flush. Not everything I write ends up mattering. That’s fine — some of it just needed to leave my head.

(This post started on paper too. Twice. Then I typed it up.)

Sometimes you need to slow down to go fast again.

photo: notebooks used this year