Recoil

There I was, grubby graphite fingers, joyously rapid logging in my Leuchtturm Bullet Journal. This is the life. Focus on the work. Not the system. Get stuff done. Keen to refresh my memory, I pulled up some the Bullet Journal's inventor's original explainer videos on You Tube. Obediently, I liked and subscribed. What's this? Ryder Carroll (afore mentioned inventor) has started a series reviewing "intentional computing". Oh look! The Remarkable 2. I've got one of those. Somewhere.

The Remarkable 2 is an e-ink tablet that you can write on with a stylus. Like the Kindle Scribe? Sort of - but loading books is a pain. In fact, by design, it's a bit awkward. It doesn't even have a browser. What it does do, is allow you to make lots of notes by hand. A sort of electronic notebook. The sort of thing you could use for...bullet journaling.

Imagine. ONE notebook, one that you don't need to replace every couple of months. ONE stylus that doesn't need sharpening or refilling or replacing.

Hmmm.

Turns out, there are multiple templates available for use on the Remarkable, and the company provides access to many of them for free, including to the official Bullet Journal template. Certainly, anyone familiar with the analogue version will have no trouble adopting the digital version.

The writing experience on Remarkable is, well, the clue is in the name.

Navigation? Flicking through physical pages is more intuitive to an old fellow like me, but I suspect I might get pretty good at moving around the template too. Being digital, my journal would be backed up, a function you don't want to need, but are glad of if you do ever require it. Of course, the Remarkable does need to be plugged in from time to time (although not very often in my experience) and is a bit bigger than A5.

I'm not using it yet. But I am experimenting.

The Remarkable does have a couple of tricks up its sleeve. I can write a draft with the stylus, and with the press of a button, have my words converted into typed text, which I can then transport into my other digital worlds. Seamless, it ain't, but it works. Also, the company behind Remarkable came up with an external keyboard. The setup is extremely stripped back - and that's a feature not a bug.

Naturally, the video shows a handsome fellow sat in a featureless boardroom containing only a table and chair. In this minimalist nirvana, our hero types, free from disturbance or distraction.

Damn. That looks good.

The document probably wouldn't look so good. There's no spell check, or other digital help, and the document comes out as a PDF, png or Epub. About much use as a chocolate teapot. However - text can also be inserted into the body on an e-mail. So, our hero could email a draft to himself (or his assistant, he looks like he'd have an assistant), and then copy/paste into another application and device for editing.

A complete context switch. That is interesting.

I'm looking at four use cases.

1. Reviewing and annotating PDFs.
2. Distraction Free Writing
3. Bullet Journal
4. "Thinking on Paper"

I'll post my results.

People like you support my writing. Sign up for my free newsletter. Become a paid member, and get access to all my writing, including anything I publish, and a Member's Slack.