People who know me personally me will typically identify me as the computer nerd, and thus they are usually surprised to hear that I hate typing. I’m not a poor typist, I think I’m fairly quick on the keys and I don’t have to look down at my keyboard, but I find that I am unable to sit and type for long periods of time. It’s not so much that it hurts my hands, I just can’t think and type at the same time. Writing articles and essays on the computer takes me hours.
However, I find I have no problem when I go low-tech and sit down with a pencil and paper. This preference extends beyond serious writing. I will opt to use a pen and paper over word processing on the computer in almost any situation. My GTD system consists of a whiteboard and an a pocket sized notebook (syncing is very unreliable).
My fondness of handwriting (and drawing, but that’s a different story) has caused me to develop brand loyalty towards a certain Japanese pencil manufacturer. I almost exclusively use Pentel Mechanical Pencils. I love everything about them. They’re well constructed, durable, there is a design for every situation, the erasers are actually usable, and the lead doesn’t break every two minutes.
As with most of my more candid posts, I’m putting this out there to find out if anyone has a similar story of brand loyalty. It’s easy to understand someone preferring a particular brand of computers or an automobile company, but when you get down to common items like pencils and paper cups, you don’t often hear people rave about any particular company… I might be wrong. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to link to that Radiohead song…
