I ditched my phone and went back to paper. Here's why 2026 is the year you should do the same - and why setting a direction beats setting goals.

Hello there, wonderful people. Happy 2026!

Now, if you want to change something in your life, don’t wait for January 1st. Just change it right away. You can do it today. Start running every day, for example. It will make your life better. I’m actually running right now as I’m telling you this.

A quick public service announcement: some of you were subscribed to my Digital Pragmatism Substack. I have sent one email to all of you with some secret info about a new project that I will not announce here. 

It’s a secret project. 

If you were subscribed, you will know which project it is. Please check your spam folders, because today most email goes to spam. Reply to my email or act accordingly - there is a button you have to click.

Forget Goals, Set a Direction Instead

Since it’s the beginning of the year and people love to make plans and set goals, I wanted to ask you to not make plans. Don’t set goals. Actually, if you want to really set some goals, there’s a better thing to do: you can set a direction for your life.

Direction is enough. If you are fairly motivated and you know you have a connection with yourself - so you pretty much know what you hate and what you like - then direction is sufficient. You will make extreme progress. Whereas if you set goals, you can be disappointed in not reaching those goals, even if the direction would be right.

So I wanted to ask you not to make plans, but rather to choose one thing you will change. One thing you will do differently in 2026. This way you will have far more chances to actually reach this one thing you want to change. You are minimizing the chances of being disappointed.

Welcome to the Year of Analog Productivity

2026 will be the year of analog productivity, and this is what you will find here. I will tell you how I ditched my electronic devices and replaced them with paper notebooks and notepads. I will show you some of my favorite pens.

This will be the leitmotif for this channel throughout the year. 

I will also post more interviews with people. I’ve got two of them which are being produced already. But I will also make more interviews and talk “analog” with interesting people.

So, welcome. Happy 2026. 

Why “Use More Paper” Is the New Name

New year, new brand. But don’t worry, I will explain everything.

Two months ago I was explaining to you why Amenotes is the better brand. And then, closer to one week ago, I started examining all the domains I have purchased over time. And I saw that I have an excellent domain that I completely forgot about. This domain is usemorepaper.com.

Just how cool would it be to have a t-shirt with that! 

And then I started analyzing whether Amenotes is not a better, more fancy word. And actually came to the conclusion that no - everything I’ve been doing on this channel was leading me to saying, 

“Hey, use less your phone, use more paper.”

I get it, of course, that there are a lot of stationery content out there. And this one will not be a stationery website (or newsletter). You can treat it as a philosophy website, maybe a lifestyle blog? 

I will not post reviews of notebooks. Well, I will post some of them, of course - those that I judge are excellent. But most of the time I will just share my ideas like I did until now.

What’s Coming Next

What is also very important is that with my wife we will actually in the future want to open a physical store that will sell notebooks - excellent quality Japanese notebooks and pens. And so it makes sense to rebrand as Use More Paper.

New year, new brand.