For quite a while now, I have gone without a digital task manager. I was writing things down in a notebook (Field Notes I use for a monthly bullet journal). It was working great. Then, I saw some friends using reminders on their iPhone and I decided to go back and try it. Been experimenting with it for a little while now and I think I’ve come to this conclusion: there’s a reason why I left digital for analogue.

I’m not sure if the realization happened last week while on vacation or because of the vacation. Either way I realized that one of the things that made the vacation so great was the lack of technology. We spent the week in Mexico and when I got there I put my phone in the safe they provided in the room. We used it a couple of times to check on a few things at the house but that was it. I had my iPad and I did a little bit of reading on it but that was it. For the most part it was a technology free vacation.

I got back to the States and had to start adulting again. This meant calendars and to-do lists. Which, in turn, meant a pull back to the phone and the technology. This morning as I unlocked my phone I saw a red badge on my reminders app. Now as a sidebar, I have always hated the badge notification. In all honesty, I’m against most notifications period. But I really dislike the badge notification. I pretty much have it turned off for most of my apps. I leave it on for phone calls and reminders. That’s it.

That’s about to change. The badge is about to be turned off for reminders. I think, in part, because I’ve decided to return back to the notebook for my planning, calendar and task management. It seems simpler and less distracting. So, this morning I spent a little bit of time transferring calendar items from my iCloud account to my planner. I’ve also done the same with reminders.

In a way its sad that a trip to Mexico is what it took for me to realize this. But, regardless how I got here, I’m glad I arrived. Now its time to get some work done. Back to my notebook.