We’ve tried it, we really have: Palm Pilot, Treo, Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, iPhone, iNeedtogetorganized.
All of them failed us in some cold, digital, blank, blinking, cruel way.
Virginia General Assembly
“It’s just that it feels good to have something in your hand, something to hold on to,” explained Janet Shepps, an aerospace industry professional, as she stood inside the FranklinCovey store in Tysons Corner this week. In her hands was an old friend she’s decided to come back to this year: a brick of calendar filler papers.
I am so with her. And so are others. Enough for one industry analyst to dub the furtive return to paper planners a “micro trend.”
We are not just old-school, VCR-using Luddites. We have laptops and iPads and Spotify accounts. We text instead of voice mail, have ripped out our land lines and fall asleep with our smartphones, leaving imprints on our cheeks.
It isn’t the fear of technology that is driving us back to the chunky Filofaxes we stored away in a box also marked “shoulder pads” and “beepers.”
It is simply the way some people are wired organizationally. The way we understand the order of our lives.
“I see a lot of that, the return to paper,” said Linda Clevenger, a personal organizer and life coach whose company, Organization Direct, is based in Fredericksburg. “In fact, four of the seven clients I have right now have that issue.”
Are you ready to cop to your day planner purgatory? Your
e-mails and contacts are on your phone, but you’re clinging to those lovely little pages filled with scribbles and stars and circles that feel so familiar.
For some people, an appointment or commitment doesn’t sink in until it’s written down, pen-to-paper, said Ron Sopko, director of new business development at MWV Consumer and Office Products, the folks who make the Day Runner.
It could be a woman thing. Clevenger said she sees a gender divide among the people who still embrace paper.
Filofax, in fact, has a whole new line of buttery leather covers in happy colors and funky patterns, and women in the United Kingdom are reportedly snapping them up as fashion accessories. So fashionable that Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour is rumored to use one.
But some men groove on paper, too. Take Air Force Chief Master Sgt. John Millington, for instance, who strode into the FranklinCovey store in a leather jacket.
“I can’t believe he still uses this stuff,” said his pal, Senior Master Sgt. Ray Fleming, shaking his head and scoffing at the organizers. “I’ve got my BlackBerry, my Droid.”
“You don’t need paper anymore,” he jabbed his friend.
Millington, 49, scowled. “That BlackBerry is like an electronic leash,” he snapped. “I’ve got mine, and I used to use it a whole lot. But I just like to have it on paper.”
Fleming, 40, raised an eyebrow.
“I can reference it a lot easier. If I want to look for something I did, I just flip to that day,” Millington continued. “It’s like a picture. You see it on your phone, all small. But there’s nothing like holding it in your hand or looking at it big.”
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