playbook
One week of handwritten notes
Seven days of writing all your notes on paper. No Notion, no Apple Notes, no Slack draft. A notebook and a pen. By the end you'll know which notes were truly necessary and which were mostly a typing tic.
1u
duration
€ 5–25
budget
Ground
pace
Most people type more than they write, and most notes are more typing tic than real thought. A Notion page you never reread, an Apple Notes folder called "ideas" that you created two years ago, a Slack draft you can no longer find. A week of handwriting only is not a romance about paper. It is a filter.
What stands out: handwriting is slower, so you write less. You write what truly needs to be remembered, not everything your brain produces. Your writing gets automatically prioritised. An idea not worth four words on paper doesn't get a spot. By day 4 you start using the notebook differently too: not as a junk archive but as a thinking partner. At the end of the week you have a 20-page notebook, and you know that 80% of your usual typed notes were unnecessary.
Checklist
0 of 5
Schriftje en pen gekocht
Moleskine en Lamy
Notion en Apple Notes niet geopend
Drempel
Eerste pagina geschreven
Dag 1
Schriftje altijd bij je
Tas of bureau
Reflectie op dag 7
Wat blijft op papier
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by PlayTryBe team
Sunday before the week: buy a notebook and a pen. Don't cut corners, even if they are work supplies.
25Don't delete Notion and Apple Notes, but move them into a folder called "Not this week". A small barrier works.
Day 1: write your first page. Date at the top, keep going. No beautiful-journal vibe, just a workbook.
0The first few hours feel slow. Your head moves faster than your hand. That is not a problem, that is the whole point. Your hand filters.
A meeting: write down only what matters. Not everything. By the end of the meeting your half page of notes is a better summary than four typed pages.
Around day 3 or 4: write down an idea that gets better through the act of writing. The slow pace forces you to develop it, not just store it.
A note on paper is physically present and has weight. A note in Notion is a file without weight. That difference changes how you use them.
Day 7: flip through the notebook. Which notes would you have made anyway? Which ones would you not have typed out? That is where the difference lies.
0For anyone copying this
Do as we did
Suggestions
- Buy a decent notebook (Moleskine or similar). A cheap notebook gets taken less seriously.
- A good pen. A Lamy Safari or similar, not a bic.
- The notebook is always with you. On the kitchen table, in your bag, on your desk.
- No "to-do" and no "ideas" as titles. Just the date and keep writing.
Variations
- - Met meditatie-app combineren: schrijf na een korte zit een paar regels op.
- - Twee weken: tien dagen is waar je verandering merkt, een week is alleen aanleren.
- - Alleen werk-notities op papier: lichtere versie, alleen werktijd telt.
- - Met fountain pen: andere fysieke ervaring, andere snelheid.