2.15 get out the good pens - switching to paper
i'm not sure what came first - my passion for notebooks and pens, or my reliance on those tools when i feel stuck and overwhelmed with my writing. this week, i'm talking all about the benefits of going pen on paper - to slow down, to be less linear, and to get unstuck! if you've been waiting for an excuse to get out the good notebook and your favorite pen, wait no more!
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Get out that fancy notebook that you've been saving, your best pen, or those cool post-it notes. You out. Because this week's episode is all about taking your thoughts and putting them on paper.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
Computers are obviously amazing. They're so powerful. They're so capable. But have you ever met a really good notebook? That's bound just the way that you want to. And that pen that has the exact right ink flow. There's something that can't be beat about working on paper.
And one of the things that I encounter with a lot of my clients and even with myself, Is that there can be a real resistance to stepping away from the computer and working in another space. And I think a lot of that comes from this fear of not being efficient enough. Why would I do pre drafting work or outlining or restructuring? =On a piece of paper or a hard copy or a notebook, if I'm just going to have to quote, redo all of that work on my computer later. Now, I'm not here to try and turn any of us into people who write all of our drafts longhand, and then send them to the typist to get them ready for our advisor's eyes. But I am suggesting that in a few specific situations, it can actually help you speed up to slow down and work in the less efficient, but more tactile realm of the paper.
Computers are a place where you can move your writing forward really quickly. But this also creates a sensation of going a little bit too fast than the actual ideas are developing. If you have ever found yourself, lost scrolling through a long document, not finding what you needed, clicking way to Twitter to try and find it hunting down that citation, remembering that you needed to book a dentist appointment, Googling that.
The loop goes on and on then you've maybe experienced what I'm calling this sync up issue, where your brain is going at a certain speed and the computer allows everything else to go quite a bit faster. Writing, especially at certain points can be a slow process. You are generating new knowledge. Therefore it will take you a little bit of time to formulate these ideas, get them ready get them lined up sequentially so that you can write them down at a document.
Working on paper, it gives you a chance to break out of that linearity. Slow down and let your brain generate those ideas at the pace that's a little bit more comfortable for you. It's not to say that you won't get back to the computer and then have all of those temptations in scrolling that you might have already had.
But for the particularly sticky seasons, when you feel stuck, when you feel overwhelmed, moving to paper is actually a way to help break that pattern of kind of frantically clicking or typing and retyping and deleting things. That real frantic nature can be calmed down by a little bit of on paper work.
Here are a few of the ways that I like to work with my writing on paper. Take what's useful and leave the rest. But I think that these benefits alone are worth an experiment in the next couple of weeks. Writing on paper, it can open up a variety of different workspaces. Pop into an empty classroom to use the whiteboard.
Take your notebook to the library or a coffee shop, work in a different corner of your couch. This is one of those changes that seems really small. Why would it make a difference for me to go to the library instead of my office, where all of my things are and all of my special mugs. But if you were feeling really stuck, really sticky, really slow going somewhere else and going somewhere else without all of the trappings of all of the other jobs and roles that need your attention can really make the difference and get you a little bit of fresh air, so to speak.
Benefit number two. It can be easier to share your thinking with other people. If you're working on paper. A brainstorming session with a mind map that you make on a big piece of paper or a whiteboard in an empty classroom can be an excellent way to get your thinking about an argument more clear while you show your work to a writing group or an advisor.
I know that I used to sit in coffee shops with my very best friends and I would scribble things and be like, see, don't you see it? I would draw them diagrams and I would connect the ideas and having it on paper, helped them follow me a little bit more as I was trying to work out those ideas. And even if you don't have an extra person to share these ideas with, I have also done high quality brainstorming with my cats or with an imagined, interested. Yeah, kind of feedback giver. And the paper makes it easier for me to remember what I was saying and for them to follow along whether they are feline or human.
Writing long hand, whether in full sentences or just in bullet points. I can allow you to slow down the actual production of words and see your own thinking more clearly. I know that I think really fast and my fingers can almost get there, but if I'm writing long hand, it takes me quite a bit of effort to get all of those words out. So.
Free writing is one of those techniques where they slow the race and the kind of frantic nature of the thoughts down so that you can see them. As opposed to scrolling through the document, looking at the feedback, looking at the comments, imagining six different ways that you can restructure and trying to keep all of that in your head. If you're working through a particularly thorny organizational issue or argumentative change writing longhand, or even putting things on post-it notes can helpfully slow you down so that you can see what you're trying to do.
If you're in a very sticky spot. You're nervous. You're overwhelmed. Your nervous system is at an 11. Working on paper can make it easier to soothe that nervous system enough. And make it a little bit harder to bounce into a different task that ultimately is going to be a distraction from what you're trying to do.
I find that the slower pace of me writing my words out, hearing the scratch of the pen on the paper actually gives me a chance to kind of reduce that overwhelm feeling. And really dig into what I'm thinking and what I'm trying to say.
Now, there's no phase of writing that won't benefit from writing on paper. If you are feeling overwhelmed or frazzled, I find that it's particularly effective in two different phases, the pre drafting, and then the restructuring.
I have clients that start any writing project with post-it notes on the wall with big ideas, they might start with free writing in a journal or making a mind map on a big piece of paper. That pre-writing phase. Is often not linear. And when we force it into a linear by design piece of software, like word. Then it really can constrain us and make it hard to see how things might be organized.
The second phase that I recommend working on paper is if you're in the middle of a really big restructure. If you're in a restructure, then it can be really difficult to make all of those changes that people are recommending as you scroll through the document.
You might end up duplicating certain areas. You might accidentally delete more than you want to. You can get lost. It's really hard, especially with big, large scale documents to do that restructuring digitally. If you have access to a printer you might print it out, cut things up, make notes. You might re outline it or reverse outline it in a notebook just to give yourself a chance to sort of see what you have and then make a couple of changes on paper and then translate those changes back into the digital.
It's that translation process that I find stops a lot of people from slowing down and working on paper. And yeah, it is going to be a pain maybe. To sit down and type up those notes or to go through and make sure that your document lines up with the new outline that you made.
And it's this kind of tool that our brains like to tell us it's inefficient. That can be especially hard to reach for in the situations when you're feeling stressed or behind AKA the situations where they might help the most. But let me assure you that this really is one of those slow down to speed up situations. You might need to budget a little bit of extra time to input, work into your final document, but if working longhand, if writing in a notebook of doing it with your favorite pen gets you unstuck. It gets you a little more focused or support, then that benefit really outweighs the work that you need to redo. Plus pens and markers and stickers. And if you need any more of a pitch than that, I can't help you.
But if this is the kind of tool and encouragement that you really are looking for at this summer, then you are most cordially invited to summer camp. A new session is starting. It's soon. They start every two weeks and you can get more information at the link in the bio.
Plus you can download your free summer planning workbook and stay tuned for cool free webinars and all sorts of other things that are coming down the pike this summer. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you soon.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!