One of my favorite categories of content is the "I tried (X) for 30 days" but that content suffers from a major problem–30 days is NOT even close to enough time to see true results.

Often the creators who make these types of videos will make claims about the long term potential of the practice without actually understanding how developing competency changes your relationship to its efficacy.

I've watched creators like Ali Abdaal and Matt D'Avella both make videos where they try the Bullet Journal Method for 30 days and get inklings that slowing down to think might be good for them, but ultimately write it off as "not for them."

The slightly slower approach to analog planning and writing by hand feels very uncomfortable to people who are used to moving at the speed of digital bits like they clearly are.

But it's not the medium that is the problem; it's competence.

When people claim digital is faster, more efficient, and superior to paper they are vastly underestimating how much experience and practice they have using digital tools.

Most of us are so used to using digital apps, computers, and AI for everything that holding a pen and seeing your sloppy handwriting makes you feel like you're going backwards to your childhood, which let's be real here, is probably the last time most people wrote by hand.

You can see this for yourself if you simply watch an elderly person try to operate a smart phone. There's nothing natural about it to them and they will hand it off to the youngest person they can find to show them how to get to their camera. Give that same person a typewriter along with a legal pad and they can rip through their work.

It's a skill issue.

But all of that analog incompetence goes away with a few months of practice.

And it is a practice.

You're learning a new way of operating. There aren't pings and reminders or automatically repopulating tasks lists displayed across a dashboard of data that an app has been collecting about you. There are no autocomplete functions to finish your sentence or a AI to draft your outline.

Writing by hand feels slow and clunky in the beginning. Your wrist might hurt. Your elbow will get sharp pains from constant contact with your desk. Drawing straight lines will feel impossible and your handwriting might barely be legible to your own eyes. Tasks might get lost in the mix and you will forget to write down an obligation.

These are all normal experiences that dissipate with practice.

As you write by hand your brain develops new neural pathways and your fine motor skills get trained. You get faster at writing with a pen, you learn how to manage a paper calendar, and your systems evolve to work for you.

Eventually, using a notebook to think on paper feels as natural as walking with shoes on. (Which also felt unatural for you once upon a time!)

How long exactly?

Like anything, the more you do it the better you get.

While 30-days is not long enough to see results, I think three months of consistently showing up in a notebook can give you real insight into the power of thinking on paper.

So if you're starting a new Bullet Journal, a diary, or trying to build a regular journaling practice into your life, then give yourself a few months before deciding if it works for you or not.

Prompt: Create a mind map for something you're trying to work through.

This exercise will help you build the skill of thinking on paper and can't be easily replicated on a computer.

Mind maps help contextualize understanding and knowledge by showing how ideas relate to one another. I find them helpful for early stages of projects to get a visual map for the ideas I'm working with.

1. Write down one word or idea at the center of the page. (In my example my word is "books" and I was trying to think through why I read them.)
2. Write down one word associations for that word.
3. Write one word associations for the words that follow connecting them as your see patterns emerge.
4. Continue to connect associations until the page is full.
5. Highlight or circle major themes and patterns.