I recently switched my career from a animal shelter worker to a desk jockey. Now my life is filled with emails, meetings, and deadlines which is completely the opposite of my previous life. I tried to streamline and organize myself by purchasing the latest tech gadgets, for example a “Remarkable” digital notebook.The idea was to have all my notes and things I don’t want on my office computer in one place. Here I am 6 months in and find myself reaching for a real note pad every chance I can. It is cumbersome to “wake it up” and scroll to a clean screen when I can just click my pen and start writing instantly. I also hate using a calendar app on my phone. I have a dry erase board on the fridge where I write important things down. Again, its opening the phone, finding the app, clicking on the day, so many extra steps! I guess for some these sorts of things work, but for me not so much. Lol I also have to hold a book or a magazine in my hand and not a kindle or my ipad. Is it just me?
I am all about cloud storage and connection elsewhere, but use a paper calendar and white boards extensively in the barn. It’s just so much easier to make a quick note on “paper” rather than pull off my gloves, pull out my phone, unlock it, open an app, and note whatever.
not just you, I’m a farrier - I have a good old paper appointment book and address book for clients, too many times my cell phone has decided it’s too cold or too hot for it to function. I will say the clients that take the appointment card and stick it on the fridge are far less likely to forget an appointment then the people who rely on their phone for dates.
I’ll disagree with this one. I never take an appointment card. I put it on my phone and as soon as I do that it is on my computer and internet. Reminders are always set too. Plus my wife can see my appointments and me hers. Sync’d calendars are one of the great advances in technology.
Another paper calendar hanger-on. I just can’t get into the phone organizer things. Half the time at home, I can’t find it (without my iPad beeping it) 
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Over the years, I have gotten 80 million note pads from organizations jonesing for donations and I use those…keep one by my land-line (!), a bunch on the table and some by my chair. When I was working, I also kept paper by my workstation. Too many programs on the computer going and something else to have to sign into (sign-ins had a time limit…I swear I spent 2 hrs of my day just signing in) so I would write down the non-urgent items to get to at my leisure.
The above mentioned things like note taking, to do lists, calendars and reminders on my iphone have eliminated my carrying a pad and pen.
Where my personal line in the sand lies with technology is with household appliances like water heaters, clothes washers, dryers, refrigerators and such which have electronics and apps so that they can talk to me. If the circuit board goes, then the appliance won’t work without an expensive replacement board. The base non-communicating models with simple switches that can be easily and inexpensively replaced do the same jobs for less cost.
I will concede it may be their demographic and not the technology eh
I hate all apps on a tablet or phone. They are just so much slower to use than either a computer with a real keyboard, or actually taking notes.
I can type 90 wpm on my computer, and probably about 25 wpm on my phone. Just not worth it.
might add garage door operators, the new ones are WiFi connectable to the internet, These units can eavesdrop
I also don’t have anything “smart” in my house. My 18yr old truck has a key, I hate my husbands new truck with the fob. I’m only 43 but I sure am sounding like a crotchety old hag lmao!
even that 18 year old truck may have embedded RFID chip or chips that can be read by various readers, most common is a in the roadway double loop system, the first loop triggers the chip the second loop records the information that is transferred up/down as the chip is a read write chip
I did consulting work for Texas Instruments in perfecting the installation of the loop systems for their RFID chips. The system even in the old days would work to vehicle speeds well in the excess of 200 mph
Oh I know that, just pointing out that I don’t go out of my way to buy all of these tech-y things. Let’s face it, the biggest data collector/tracker is in my phone. It knows everything bout me.
I work a desk job and keep sticky notes and a notebook. I do use my work e-calendar though - we use it to schedule meetings and block off time when we are busy. For my personal calendar outside of work I just use my brain 
and MAYBE my notes app. My calendar in my phone is blank.
Tech works when you’re parked at a computer or have smart-everything. I’m pretty smart tech shy (unlike my SO who would control everything through Alexa if I let it happen) but I know how to use it. I know the devices I have are listening, but I shut off all the features I can (and do things like intentionally buying the last iPhone without integrated AI, and now I’m subbornly refusing to update anything. A flip phone may be in my future and I’m not kidding).
I like tech, when it serves a purpose. But it is SO much faster to just grab a pen when I’m at work vs fight with Outlook and Teams to get to my email or calendar.
My smartphone is used only for social media, photos, google maps when away from home and listening to podcasts on Spotify. I dont even use Spotify for music :). My iPad is used for the Kindle app and the one game I play every now and again. I’m simply too busy with life and hobbies.
No smart appliances - I dont need my fridge telling me that I need more orange juice. You have to programme everything in anyway.
I think it depends on what you are used to and your lifestyles. My friend likes having a paper calendar in the barn and we write down joint needs - like farrier appointments or when one of us is out of town. Of course half the time she forgets to write stuff down.
I use my Google calendar extensively - I can get to it on my computer at home and on my phone when not at home and 90% of the appointment reminders I need are when I am not at home. It is much more convenient to me to set up a reminder on my phone than to remember to look at a calendar. I set up the reminder (if needed) when I’m setting up my appointment.
I also set reminders on my phone and if I want to see when we want to schedule the farrier, I set the reminder to let me know at say 0830am, when I am at the barn and can ask the friend “hey, do we want to call the farrier or can we wait? How do the feet look?”
When I need to refer to an event, it is also right there - like talking to my horse’s chiropractor today - I could pull up my calendar on my phone and look and see how long it had been since the last time he was out.
At work, I have multiple calendars in Outlook - for my boss, and two of the sales people. Much easier when scheduling an appointment with a client to know the other individuals’ schedules.
On the other hand, I tend to use pen and paper more than my phone or other device for notes. At work, the notes are temporary, then transposed to an email or our online tracking system. I looked at devices like Remarkable before but if my touch screen computer’s pen has anything to say about it, my handwriting is illegible anyway so if those devices try to transfer my handwriting into text, I would always get wingdings.
I also didn’t like with whatever brand I was looking at before, it didn’t seem to transfer to phone/computer well and my aim was to have the information available on multiple devices (such as my caldendar).
I do use Google docs. I have a reference Word doc that I add to either on my phone or computer and have it on my phone to reference AFI’s while at a meeting or something. My finances are on a Google sheet so I can easily add an expense to track my spending - so I won’t forget about it.
I do like Kindle books for two reasons - 1, reading at with the lights out…2, I can carry vastly more books while traveling.
