There’s a peculiar irony lurking in today’s productivity software landscape. Applications like Notion, Slack, and Monday.com promise to revolutionize how we work, offering sleek interfaces and powerful collaborative features. Yet for professionals like me, these tools often feel like complex solutions in search of a problem.
As someone who recently explored the much-hyped world of productivity apps, I’ve found myself questioning whether we’ve abandoned proven methods of information processing for digital ‘shiny things’ that might actually be slowing us down.
The Old School Approach: Pen, Paper, and Processing
For decades, professionals across industries relied on a deceptively simple system: taking notes by hand, reviewing them, and manually reorganizing information. This traditional approach wasn’t just about recording information—it was about processing it.
When I take notes on paper, I’m organically forced to capture the essentials. I identify key points, flag novel (or unfamiliar) concepts, and highlight details I might otherwise forget. Later, when I transcribe these notes into a more organized format, I feel like I’m engaging in deep cognitive processing. The information is being absorbed into the fibers of my brain matter. Each rewriting becomes a form of active learning. It’s comparable to the effects of rote learning: reinforcing neural pathways through repetition and cementing understanding.
This method has served me well through learning Vietnamese, preparing for certifications, creating film production schedules, and studying IT concepts. In fact, the better I’ve become at note-taking, the better I am at retaining the information. The physical act of writing, followed by thoughtful reorganization, creates a powerful learning loop that digital (i.e. productivity) tools often bypass entirely.
The New School Promise: Organized Chaos?
Modern productivity platforms present themselves as the solution to our organizational woes. After spending hours watching tutorials on Notion’s capabilities, I can appreciate its robust functionality and relative user-friendliness. The ability to create pages, sub-pages, calendars, databases, and permission systems seems impressive on the surface.
But here’s where the productivity paradox emerges: these tools demand significant upfront investment before delivering value. Consider what’s required:
- Learning curves that steal productive hours
- Constant adaptation to ever-changing interfaces and features
- Time-consuming setup of categories, labels, and organizational systems
- Maintenance of these systems across projects and teams
The question becomes whether the organizational benefits outweigh these costs. Simply transferring information into Notion doesn’t automatically make you more productive—it just makes your information digitally accessible, assuming you’ve created the right organizational architecture.
The Hidden Cognitive Benefits We’re Losing
What productivity software often fails to replicate is the cognitive processing that happens when we manually interact with information. When I rewrite my “scribbly notes” with proper headings and structure, I’m not just organizing—I’m reprocessing, reinforcing, and internalizing.
Digital platforms prioritize storage and retrieval over this critical cognitive step. They make information findable but not necessarily absorbable. They facilitate sharing but not necessarily understanding.
When Does Modern Software Actually Help?
Can organizing assist? To be fair, collaborative tools like Slack and Notion excel in specific contexts—particularly when multiple people need simultaneous access to evolving information. Teams separated by geography or time zones benefit from these platforms in ways that traditional methods can’t match.
But we should question whether individual productivity truly benefits from these systems, or if we’re simply following marketing narratives that equate digital adoption with progress. For many tasks, especially those requiring deep learning and information processing, traditional methods might still hold the advantage.
Finding Balance in a Digital World
Perhaps the wisest approach isn’t choosing between old and new, but strategically deploying both. Use paper notes and manual reprocessing for deep learning and understanding. Reserve digital tools for situations where collaboration and information accessibility are genuinely enhanced.
The most productive professionals will recognize that true productivity isn’t about having the trendiest software—it’s about using the right method for each specific task. Sometimes the oldest tools remain the best, not because they’re familiar, but because they work in harmony with how our brains actually process and retain information.
In our rush to digitize everything, we may have undervalued the cognitive benefits of manual information processing. The next productivity revolution might not come from another app subscription—it might come from rediscovering the power of putting pen to paper.
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