Why use a physical planner when I already have a digital calendar, email, AI, and apps?

Keep your digital tools. The 88 Day Planner is another tool in your toolbox to give you clarity.

By putting pen to paper, you engage your mind and body in ways that digital tools cannot. When it comes to making your vision your reality, the 88 Day Planner will help you be more productive when you are working with digital tools, so that you get more out of each day. Planning on paper means a little less time on screens to reduce brain fog and help you avoid distractions, such as social media or notifications, when you are planning. Planning is the one activity where maximum clarity helps you avoid mistakes, such as working on the wrong things. Mistakes in planning are the most expensive mistakes you can make.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo asked people to write the same schedule into a paper notebook, a tablet, or a phone. An hour later, during a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, the paper group showed stronger activity in memory-related areas, including the hippocampus, when they recalled what they had written. See Umejima, Ibaraki, Yamazaki and Sakai, Paper Notebooks vs. Mobile Devices (Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 2021). Writing your vision by hand means you are more likely to remember it.

Researchers in Norway recorded electrical activity on the scalp while students wrote words by hand or typed the same words. Handwriting produced wider connections across the brain, in the rhythms used to lock in new information. See Van der Weel and Van der Meer, Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity (Frontiers in Psychology, 2024). When you write by hand, more of you is present.

Writing requires movement, sight, and focus, so your vision is internalized. To make your vision a reality, write it by hand to give your subconscious mind clarity, so that it can work on it while you are doing other things. Planning with pen and paper is an act of self-love.