by Originally published on Linkedin, January 27, 2020
At Accenture, we consider ourselves (among other things) as Digital Workers. What exactly does that mean? It means we embrace new ways of working, leveraging the latest in technology to help us get our work done more collaboratively, efficiently and more flexibly than ever before. It’s not about working more or harder, it’s about broadening our skills and opening our minds to working in new ways that make sense for the kinds of things we want to accomplish.
As our Social Collaboration Change and Adoption Lead, I work with teams across Accenture to drive awareness and adoption of our tools and these new ways of working. As such, I spend my entire day in front of a computer screen, clicking on a keyboard and attending virtual meetings via Microsoft Teams. (We are the largest implementation of Teams on planet Earth, and it’s been a real game-changer!)
I love my role because I’m an enthusiast and early adopter of new technologies. I love to pilot new tools and find ways to help our people understand how using them can help them achieve greater success. However, as much as I’m obsessed with living the digital life, I’ve been fighting a battle within myself for years that I think has finally been settled. Or at least the dust has settled…for now.
I love handwriting, paper, and physical planners.
Over the years, I’d tell myself while taking notes in OneNote, “if I can’t easily search for it, what’s the point?” We’re bombarded with so much information on the daily, I’d fill page after page on my computer screen. But earlier this month–to kick off 2020–I bought a planner I’d been eying (after extensive research) and began once again putting pen to paper.
There are many studies that show the benefits of memory retention in handwriting over typing (here’s one). And so far, I’ve found it to be true. Rather than typing feverishly to capture as much as I can when in a meeting, I write key points or action items in the notes section of my planner. It feels more deliberate; authentic, in a way that only comes from a pen tip brushing across the weight of heavy gauge paper.
I’ve made 2020 the year where I return to my love of handwriting and using a paper planner–not to replace my beloved technology tools (Outlook, MS Teams, etc.). Those tools tell me the “when” and “where.” The planner and my notes tell me the much more important “why” and “how.” By writing ideas and purposes and hopes and desired outcomes, I’m painting a larger picture of the work I’m doing–providing context. And by handwriting notes, I’m being brief and succinct in capturing action items (some of them make it into Microsoft To Do or Planner), but many of them live in my Clever Fox planner until I take the satisfaction in drawing a line through them as completed.
Write article about returning to a paper planner.
