Advantages of the paper planner

Everyone is aware of the advantages of an electronic devise such as a Palm or BlackBerry. It is impossible to purchase a hard-copy planner that could hold even a fraction of the information provided by a PDA. The total information contained in a life's accumulation of planners could be housed in a tiny three-inch by four-and-a-half-inch PDA. And it can do everything from take calls, record messages, take photographs and beam addresses to other electronic devices.

But bells and whistles aside, as a planner it doesn’t rate as high. Here are five reasons some people still prefer a hard copy planner for scheduling their appointments and major tasks and activities.

1. It is more effective to use a hard copy planner where you can see your entire week, complete with scheduled tasks and descriptive things to do at a single glance. You don’t have to turn it on to access your information, nor be interrupted by it ringing. And it’s a lot easier to read.

2. It’s faster to retrieve the day to day information from a traditional planner, where a flip of a page brings you a whole new week of plans, appointments and projects.

3. A hard copy planner reflects your uniqueness. It takes on your personality, complete with handwriting, color coding, habits and style. PDAs are all alike, cold and impersonal.

4. There is no need to constantly upgrade to a later model, or recharge it. And it never crashes, freezes or loses its data.

5. The initial investment is not as high, nor the replacement cost. It doesn’t break when dropped and there’s little chance of having it stolen. And your paper planners become permanent journals that you can keep and consult in the years ahead.