PTPL 163 · Your System Must Be Able to Survive the No-App, Blank Page Test

The quiet power of just enough

Black pen on a page in an open notebook that reads: IF IT DON’T WORK ON PAPER, IT DON’T WORK - No matter how well your digital task management system is organise, how well it works for you, there’s something missing if your world would fall apart without it. Scribbled truths by the Author. The word ‘paper’ can also be taken to mean an ordinary text file.

Can you trace the roots of your current productivity and note making systems?

What I mean is this:

If every purpose-built app ceased working and all the fancy paper planners slipped into another dimension while you slept tonight, is the essence of your system such that you would be able to function, to rebuild, without them?

Between you and the paper or digital blank page lies enough to be both organised and creative. Of course if this isn’t your usual way of working you will also have a fair amount of friction.

You don’t have to strip everything away (though you could, and I heartily recommend the exercise); just imagine what it would be like. Pay attention to what hurts the most.

It might be

Time - double handling, manual data entry
Collaboration - other people’s input is needed, remotely
Security - keeping sensitive information safe

…or something else.

Whatever it is, reinstate what’s needed to function in your field, then sit with the rest for a time.

And ask lots of questions! Why am I hankering for tool x, feature y, device z?

Get clear on your goals, but don’t weld yourself to them.

Non-zero-sum James says “I am trying to remind myself not to let a singular goal get in the way of moments of enjoyment and connection when they arrive.”

James has explored game theory concepts in ways that can be applied to pretty much everything. Speaking of emergent systems, he says that

something can be described as emergent when it has completed an emergent cycle, in that it has taken a system (the substrate) and, through exposure to some friction in the system, reliably generated a new phenomenon which reaches an equilibrium that now creates a substrate or niche for something new to emerge. (source)

hand drawn spiral flowchart illustrating the main points of the above paragraph Diagram from Emergence Spirals

For a truly firm foundation (that can use special tools without relying on them):

Cut your systems down to their simplest level
Notice the friction that results
Adapt as needed
See what emerges

It’s a beautiful thing, this emergence! But friction works best when it’s observed, not chased or avoided.

Remember the roots, the essence of your current productivity and note making systems. Recognise that if it don’t work on paper (or in an ordinary text file), it don’t work, or, at least, you don’t yet fully understand the process.

One last thing: your friction and the systems that emerge from it are yours. What you end up with might look something like what the I-can’t-live-without-this-app crowd are doing, but it doesn’t have to.