My Brain Runs On Paper

I’m a ClickUp consultant who carries a Field Notes notebook everywhere.

Yes, I know. The irony isn’t lost on me.

Yesterday I was on the train home from Birmingham. No signal. Just me, a £5 notebook, and 20 minutes of actual uninterrupted thinking.

I wrote about the trip. How ridiculous the corporate world is (I still have a day job). The new people I met. My thoughts about the day.

Then I wrote something in bold that I needed to see: I didn’t answer the call to adventure.

Earlier that day, I’d got nervous in a conversation. Withdrew instead of leaning in. The kind of moment you only catch if you’re actually processing your day instead of just surviving it. I wouldn’t have spotted that pattern if I was scrolling my phone or checking Substack on the train.

Why paper works differently

Paper doesn’t ping. It doesn’t need wifi. There are zero distractions. You get into flow stupidly fast.

But it’s more than that. When you write by hand, you’re forced to slow down. You can’t brain-dump at 100mph like you can when typing. You actually process what you’re thinking instead of just reacting to the next notification.

I use ClickUp to run my entire business. It’s brilliant at what it does. Tasks, automations, client workflows, the lot. But my brain needs something different for the messy, personal, half-formed thoughts that don’t belong in a task manager.

Something offline. Something private. Something that fits in my pocket and works on a train with no signal.

How I actually use it

I bullet journal in my Field Notes. Nothing fancy. No colour-coding or elaborate spreads. Just daily logs, rapid notes, and whatever needs to get out of my head.

Some days it’s work thoughts. Some days it’s parenting chaos. Yesterday it was corporate observations and a reminder not to be a coward in conversations.

The notebook is always in my pocket with a pen. If I think it, I can write it. No unlocking a phone, opening an app, waiting for it to sync. Just open and go.

And because it’s paper, it stays private. No cloud backup. No AI scanning it for insights. Just me and my thoughts.

The point

I’m not anti-tech. I’m clearly not. I’ve built my entire business on ClickUp and automation. But some things just work better the old way.

ClickUp runs my business. But my brain runs on a notebook.

If you’ve been drowning in apps and struggling to actually think, maybe try going offline for a bit. Grab a cheap notebook. Carry it everywhere. Write messy. See what happens.

You might surprise yourself.

What’s the low-tech thing you refuse to give up? Subscribe to the newsletter, hit reply, and let me know.