Remember the days when you used to go in to work five days (or more) a week? To many people it may feel like a past life — something vaguely familiar but not quite who you are today. Many things are swinging back towards the old norms. That which became foreign during the COVID-19 pandemic are now slowly becoming familiar again. But some things seem to have been left behind.
Many people are continuing to do their work remotely (either full-time or “hybrid”) and the “tools of the trade” from the pandemic remote-first world have stuck around in abundance — whiteboards & task boards, to-do lists, shared calendars, planners, documents, and assistants. All digital. All claiming to boost your productivity and make you the most organized you that you can be.
But I never felt any of those things made me more productive or effective. To me, they felt like digital water-cooler topics-du-jour that fill those your 5–10 minutes before/after a Zoom meeting with your co-workers.
“Have you tried _____? It’s amazing and completely changed how I work”
Or perhaps they were just a way to appease The Management; to showcase how collaborative and productive we are (so they won’t take remote work away for good).
Fast forward three years, and everything came to a head; the digital tools/assistants/alarms kept demanding attention in a seemingly incessant stream each day. No matter how many times I snooze a reminder/notification/message, it will eventually get lost or forgotten — sometimes unintentionally, many times on purpose if I were to be perfectly honest; my mind had lost the willpower to deal with this digital deluge. I was still productive. I got stuff done. But it felt ad-hoc, jumping from item to item on a to-do list that never shrunk as quickly as it grew. With each new entry seemingly demanding yet another tier of higher priority and urgency.
Before all the digital productivity fads, I used to carry a pen and paper notebook to all my meetings. In the morning, I’d grab a cup of coffee from the office break room and sit down at my desk. I’d read my notes, and plan my day. Somewhere along the way, while we were all figuring out how to work in a remote world, I lost this habit and routine.
And then it happened. Sudden, (bitter)sweet silence.
Like many people in the tech industry, I was let go in early 2023— laid off, role eliminated, it’s not you, it’s the new business reality. As I switched from “WTF” mode to “what am I going to do next?” mode, I was faced with an unforeseen casualty from going all-in on digital — I basically lost all my notes, meeting minutes, documents, roadmaps, OKR’s, statistics, metrics, etc. at the push of some IT button at my ex-employer. Years of my life, inaccessible. The impact of this did not fully materialize until I started to update my resume and answering questions in job interviews. My memory has never been great, and it felt like I either had to give high-level, fluffy answers or make up some specifics — both of which aren’t great as good interviewers can sniff out disingenuous responses immediately.
Eventually — after months of applications (100+ with ~10% response rate), recruiter phone screens, hiring manager screens, coding and system design rounds — I landed my next gig. Fully remote. Home office stipend. And as I prepared for my first weeks, planning my home office setup and upgrades, I decided to ditch digital. I’m going back to analog.
Where to start?
- Pen
- Paper notebook
- ???
This seemingly simple decision led me down several rabbit holes that presented more options and questions than answers. To find out what I needed out of my analog tools, I needed to examine what I actually do for work (and spoiler, in my personal life as well).
I’m hoping by writing about my journey and personal learnings, it can help others find the simplicity and mindfulness that comes from putting pen to paper — I know, ironic, that this is a digital blog; but digital still has it’s place and I didn’t feel like handing out paper pamphlets on my street corner.
-koda.e
