Give me a blank page of my notebook and my pen — I shall fill that page in no time.
I’ve been doing this for years now. It doesn’t matter the problem, something with math and numbers: paper and pen. Org structures? Paper and pen. Blog posts? Paper and pen.
This seems to work because the human mind abhors the emptiness of a blank page.
I typically juice the cycle by writing a heading, a date, or any one liner associated with what I want to think about to get things moving. From there the mess happens, scribbles and words. They are disjointed but reconfigured with arrows. In all of that, my thinking solidifies, and the idea takes hold.
[…]
Here’s what you need:
- A Good Pen
- A Lovely Notebook
- No Phone (or use my Attention Mode)
- A Watch, Analog
- A Nice Drink
It is really that simple, if you are stuck and want to be not-stuck then get a paper and a pen, and you’ll quickly start moving again. That’s it.
— Thinking Analog — Ben Brooks