Digital Planner v Paper Planner

The relative merits of going Digital or Paper Planners has recently arisen on NewtonTalk. The Financial Times not so long ago held a poll that showed that 82% of respondents still favoured a Paper Planner.

What Paper Planners have going for them:

• PDAs can lose your info if not backed up: in fact, I reckon this is one of the reasons why people place synchronizing their PIM data to a desktop machine so high on their list of priorities.
  
• More convenient and quicker for note taking in meetings: There is less concentration required to jot down notes on a paper page. Navigating around within a digital user interface is more complex and can be a distraction from actively listening to a fast moving discussion in meetings.
  
• Usable even if mains power or replacement batteries are unavailable: No need to worry about batteries running out during a long meeting or having the embarrassment of having to plug it in, in the middle of a meeting, then watching work mates having to step over your cord through the day as they move in and out of the board room.
  
• A degree of magnitude less maintenance: I don't know about everyone else but it seems that I am often maintaining my Newton, storing Notes into the right folders, backing up information and then deleting what's not required so it doesn't get too full. I don't recall doing so much maintenance on my Franklin Day Planner. Maybe I did but I just don't recall it.
  
• A degree of magnitude cheaper: Its possible to pick up a simple paper diary or generic paper planner for less than $20 at a retail outlet. Most PDAs or Smartphones will cost you hundreds of dollars.
  
• Less distraction: There is a lot of stuff that can be loaded up on a modern PDA or Smartphone. By the time one has finished browsing the latest application or game, any time saving from good time management on anything else has been frittered away. With less distraction comes clearer thinking.
  
• There's something organic about paper and pen: Writing or jotting down ideas, diagrams, and mind maps is so natural. Complex ideas can be quickly mapped out with little or no fuss. Your handwriting is preserved for posterity and whatever you record is stamped with your identity. Future historians will love it. Digital data is comparatively sterile and not so easy to verify the author's identity. And when you're gone, who can find your correspondence amidst the jumble of files on your hard drive?
  
• Almost limitless opportunity for creativity: Sites like DIY Planner (http://www.diyplanner.com/) present lots of ideas of how a paper planner can be designed. Page templates, binding systems, organisational systems, indexing methods, different papers and other materials give the afficianado plenty of scope for tailoring something to taste.
  
• Mind mapping for organising thoughts: I have been a great fan of this technique. Note taking using mind maps works great in meetings as a new branch can quickly accommodate an aside and the previous conversation thread can be continued later. Conventional note taking is so linear. Mind mapping can also be done on a Newton but only if it is left largely as digital ink. Converting the handwriting to text in such a mind map so that it is searchable can be done but it is a little tedious, even on a Newton.

What Digital PDAs or smartphones have got going for them:

• Less copying unfinished business to the next page: This is the reason that got me started down the digital path at the outset. It was a genuine chore to have to copy across all my uncompleted tasks across to the next day's page in my Paper Planner. Going digital removed this tedious task.
  
• More searchable: The number of times I've thought, where are my notes from that meeting? And then quickly finding it to the amazement of my colleagues around the table has been awesome. Unless a paper journal is indexed it's quite difficult to find a note written a while ago.
  
• Better data security through backups in case of loss or misplacement: Paper diaries very rarely make it to more than one copy. Once this copy is lost, it is never to be retrieved again. On the other hand, digital copies are easily reproduced and stored in multiple locations. Backups can be done with Newton Connection Utilities over a serial connection or onto a Memory Card. A Newton memory card backup means that it will back up to the Card only information that is stored internally. I keep all PIM data on internal storage and then rotate memory cards, an idea I got from a NewtonTalk (http://www.newtontalk.net/) tipster ages ago.
  
• More fun: Yes, yes, yes! Its great fun exploring all sorts of different applications and games. The Newton OS User Interface has proved to be quite an elegant and sophisticated one with so many nuances that even after four or five years, I occasionally find a new and convenient feature.
  
• Easier to track relationships with linking between tasks, appointments and contacts: I use MoreInfo which allows all these elements to be linked. Its pretty easy then to pull up a logbook of everything associated with that Contact.
  
• Life saving audible alarms: Sometimes in a busy day, one's focus can be absorbed by fire fights. The number of times my Newton has saved my bacon can't be counted. Adam Tow's Alarm Clock application will wake the dead (downloadable from http://www.tow.com/).
  
• Outlining for organising thoughts: The Outline stationary in the Newton's Notes application is great for doing for me what a mind map would normally do. Individual bullets can be promoted and demoted just by dragging them around. Whole bullets with nested subheads can be grafted or pruned or transferred at will. Awesome for note taking in meetings. Outlining isn't so easy on a paper planner.
  
• Updating and adding new reference information is less messy: My address book in my old paper planner would get more messy as time went by. Old addresses and phone numbers needed scribbling or twinking out. I like writing with fountain pens so writing over twink didn't work so well. Using a pencil and eraser was too aesthetically austere for me.

There are people migrating between the Paper Planner school and the Digital Planner school all the time. Sometimes the search for the best combination of methods to organise personal information and to manage time seems endless....