The old fashioned way

I've been doing a lot of writing lately (not the good/fun kind, just papers and reports), and I'm slowly realizing that I can only produce quality (i.e. "quality") if I write things on paper first. I can't be productive if I'm writing on the computer. It just won't happen.

At first I thought it was a problem with having too many distractions around online and on my computer. Then I moved to my mother's old laptop with essentially no functionally aside from word processing, but it still didn't happen.

I think it has something to do with needing something physical and tactile. A computer doesn't give me a sense of accomplishment. It's much more satisfying writing 15 pages on lined paper with my trusty ink pen than typing the same amount on a computer. Screw ease of editing, I want my draft to look like some sort of surreal apocalypse wasteland. Plus, I find it incredibly stress relieving putting on some music and going through and transcribing my scrawlings onto the computer when it's ready.

If I wrote this post on paper before typing it up, it would probably be 38% more interesting and I probably would have felt like I accomplished something by not writing my formal lab report.

Instead, now I have two hours to get it done and I'm feeling a little bit like Jake when he morphed into a rabbit and got trapped in a box but had to morph back before his time ran out or else he would get stuck as a rabbit forever.