Oct 6, 2021
Going Paperless with the iPad: My Experience
This is something I have been thinking about for quite some time. I have an iPad, I have an Apple Pencil, and the primary way I use my iPad is as a notebook.
Why?
This is an important question to ask. For many, this is something that should be obvious, while others may ridicule the idea of doing so. Paper has proved since centuries before us, that it is one of, if not, the best medium to pour out thoughts. Taking notes, writing, doodling, the list goes on and on.
1. For the Earth
Let’s be honest, the world isn’t in the best shape right now and cutting down trees so that a student can draw a terrible stick figure in the corner of notes that they will probably not refer to at all isn’t going to help it. More than 3.5 billion trees are cut down every year for books, and that isn’t even considering the number of pollution paper contributes to.
Our planet could surely use some help here.
2. For myself
I used to be that kid in school who would carry only 4 books, a pen and a writing pad to school, and every month miraculously, I would magically find forgotten slips about appointments, lost notes, worksheets and even leaking ink-pens, in every compartment of my apparently empty bag.
This went on from way back in preschool all the way to college, which is right now. Having a way to digitally access the notes form anywhere, and to be able to file them easily was the major reason which led me to this. No more dealing with crumpled up reels of who-knows-what.
Why choose the iPad?
As I stated in my earlier post, the iPad is a wonderful tool, especially for students. OneNote is my note-taking app of choice and it is packed with useful features, most of which I use almost everyday.
I mean I know we can already type out notes on our laptops, but that doesn’t really appeal to me. My typing speed is fast, I’ll admit, but there is just something about using a pen to draw around your notes — make spider-diagrams, highlight stuff, and make pretty doodles.
The Apple Pencil is also a game-changing accessory and a must-have in my opinion; it drastically changes the experience of owning an iPad. Latency is next to none, and charging (no matter how awkward it may seem, for us budget users) is fast with the battery lasting long enough to not be irritating.
Further, the number of quality apps on the iPad is stupid big. OneNote, Procreate, Notability, GoodNotes, the Office Suite, and Lumafusion are only some select examples. I tried using the Samsung Tab S7+, and while it was leagues ahead of my budget 2020 iPad in terms of hardware, the app-situation seemed almost half-baked. Even Microsoft’s own OneNote has a better iPad app than an Android one — and don’t even think about calling me an Apple fanboy, I’m far from being that, but I have to admit, Apple really has fantastic developers aboard its train.
By itself, the iPad has a good enough screen for what I want to do on it and the processor is also really well optimized; it’s more than fast. For an in-depth look at my iPad of choice, check out my review - here.
How I use the iPad?
This is what’s on my iPad home-screen.
Usually I simply turn it on and start scribbling in my notetaking app of choice. Other times I’ll draw on Procreate for a while, use Safari for web browsing. I enjoy taking somewhat good-looking notes in class, it helps me actually pay attention instead of drooling or empty gazing at the laptop screen. Since almost all my classes are online, I’ll usually have my video-conferencing app open on my laptop and instead of actually doing the hard work and drawing any important diagrams, I’ll simply take a screen-shot and paste it on my page.
In case of any physical worksheet given to us, or maybe a circular, I use my phone to turn it into a PDF, and insert a printout of that in OneNote. Then I simply throw the hardcopy away — no hassles. I can also easily annotate, edit, and export it as required.
Using the iPad has been greatly beneficial as I seem to have become much more organized in what I do. It greatly reduces the friction between thinking of taking a note and actually taking it.
I don’t have to physically open a specific book, and find the last blank page, then take out my pouch, and take out my pen and then take off its lid and then write — whew!
It also helps increase space in my bag and make it considerably lighter since all my notes are stored electronically, and it also means that I never forget my notes, I always have them on me: on my phone, my iPad, or my laptop.
Final Verdict
Going into this, I knew there would not be any major caveats, and truth be told, there aren’t any. If anything, it has me more intrigued as to why anyone shouldn’t consider going down this path.
I mean well, yes, it seems expensive, but then if we add up the $20 we spend every year on physical books, recycling costs and pens and inks, I think it more than justifies the $350 (or more) investment. And that isn’t even considering how much of a difference it would bring to the planet as a whole, less pollution, less deforestation.
Finally, the sheer convenience of it is what sells it for me. Time is precious, and even if we can save 10 minutes of it everyday, it gives us 10 minutes of freedom to spend time as we like — with family, alone, sleeping, meditating, and anything that makes us happy.
