the most radical change I made in 2024 was to use my phone less and a pocket notebook more today I’ll share five ways to use pocket notebooks to help you become more articulate less distracted and more productive than 99% of people now writing in a notebook may seem outdated and cumbersome to you you may be wondering why would anyone use a pocket notebook in the first place when we already have smartphones that can do just about anything but that dependence on smartphones to replace all other tools is the root of most problems experienced in the 21st century phone addiction and social media apps are destroying people’s abilities to focus and be productive if you depend on smartphones for everything then it becomes impossible to put them down every note in your phone is just another chain on your leg keeping you dependent on the device that is constantly at war with your attention pocket notebooks are the Ultimate Weapon to fight back against silicon Valley’s digital Warfare on your dopamine systems they contain no distractions but the ones you write down in them they are owned by you curated by you and designed to achieve the goals set by you now that’s the number one reason I use pocket notebooks and have found them to be such game changers for my quality of life so let’s get into how I actually use them so you can hopefully reap some of the same benefits most people will use their phones or some productivity app to take quick notes so they don’t forget things while trying to accomplish other tasks of course typing thoughts into a phone is quicker but there are two main benefits to the analog approach that I think make pocket notebooks far superior the first benefit is is that paper allows you to draw connections underly key Concepts and draw visual representations within seconds whereas digital tools simply aren’t as streamlined the second benefit is that pocket notebooks are free from the distractions contained in a phone making them more conducive to productive and focused work since these notes are just working memory you can toss them once you’re done and never worry about cluttering your workspace they’re perfect for quick to-do list brainstorming and workshopping ideas I’ve since switched to a sticky note system so I can use pocket notebooks as my preferred tool a deep Learning System that’s the Second Use case I want to talk about is a personal dictionary there’s something called the illusion of confidence where we think we know things just because we’re familiar with them this can leads you reading a book on baking bread and thinking you’re a master only to realize you have no clue what you’re doing once you’re in the kitchen this illusion of competence leads us to gloss over words in a text without stopping to think about what they actually mean just because we’ve seen them before since spending less time on my phone I’ve developed a strong reading habit of at least 1 hour a day often I will come across words I didn’t really know the definition of but I’ve seen a bunch of times in the past I would have just kept reading but now I write them down in my pocket notebook to look up later and it’s crazy how many words I thought I knew but was completely oblivious to the true meaning of I also write down interesting words or phrases from other languages like the Japanese word Karoshi which means death from overwork now I find it interesting that the Japanese have a word dedicated to the concept of working yourself to death I think words in their history say a lot about our culture and how it’s changed over time if you make it a habit to add words to your personal dictionary you’ll become more capable of articulating your ideas in a sophisticated manner the third use case is the keep a commonplace book keeping a commonplace book is an ancient practice that goes back as far as the ancient Romans and possibly further in its simplest form a commonplace book is a book of quotes categorized by a common header you might have Pages dedicated to a theme such as envy and any quotes you come across that are relevant to that theme you would write down in its appropriate spot now I find this structure to be too rigid for everyday purposes but I still write down not and passages and phrases that I come across in my pocket notebook I just don’t stick to a formal commonplace book structure rather I write whatever resonates with me so that I can reflect on the passages in my idle time instead of looking at my phone for distraction one statistic that always makes my jaw drop is the average American checks their phone 144 times a day now my goal is to lower that number to the absolute minimum and I do that by checking my pocket notebook instead here’s a quote that I open my pocket notebook to this morning that’s extremely relevant too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life which makes them constantly search for distractions and short circuits the learning process the path is a kind of challenge your mind presents will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction that quotes from Robert Green from the book Mastery reflecting on a passage like that every day instead of scrolling Tik Tok or Instagram can have no other effect than radical Behavior change now the fourth use case is a memorization tool here’s how you can Master any topic you’re interested in so you could clearly articulate your thoughts in every situation you find yourself in first you write by hand a quote Insight or definition you want to remember in your pocket notebook second you actively struggle to recall that information from memory third you check your accuracy by comparing what you said to the notes in your notebook finally you repeat it varied intervals throughout the days weeks and months now learning research has proven the absolute best way to learn anything is through active recall at spaced intervals this method will allow you to learn memorize and recall anything you choose to focus on if you do this on a regular basis instead of looking at your phone you will quickly become the most interesting person in your friend group who else will be able to recall facts recite quotes and contribute interesting perspectives to the conversation while they’re succumbing to brain rot from endless social media consumption your mind will be expanding Beyond previously conceived limitations instead of the illusion of competence gained from exposure to content you will develop true power through Mastery now I do this throughout my day on my walks while at work and while doing munding tasks like chores around the house it’s the ultimate daily learning method the fifth use case for a pocket notebook is a full-blown productivity system using a pocket notebook as a working memory tool is great but sometimes you need a more rigorous system for managing work this was a problem I ran into while trying to manage my full-time job my band the newsletter my YouTube channel and life in general eventually I needed to plan my weeks or organized task in actual to-do list and incorporate time boxing methods to structure my life at first I ran towards digital tools like Trello Milo and eventually notion to build the perfect productivity system I spent months building a custom dashboard that catered to my every need it worked for a while but like all digital systems complexity started to creep in and before I knew it I was spending more time maintaining my system than working it’s the classic productivity trap where instead of doing the thing you spend all your time doing everything but the thing pocket notebooks forc me to simplify my systems and made it impossible to over complicate things a pocket notebook planner has everything you need a calendar daily agendas Pages for notes and you can design these systems in any notebook it doesn’t have to be a pre-built planner like this one you don’t need anything more than a pen and paper to become extremely organized your productivity will increase by simply removing distractions and eliminating digital widgets from your life I wrote and made a full video about the full system I use for most of 2024 here if you’re interested