Okay, I get it. We live in a tech-obsessed world where if you’re not using the latest Gen-AI tools, prototyping tools, Figma plugins, you’re behind. But… what if the “old-school” methods, you know, the ones that don’t come with a big price tag and a learning curve that makes you cry, actually work better? Spoiler: They do.

Index cards

Take Ryan Holiday and Robert Greene, both bestselling authors. Instead of fancy software, they organise their ideas using index cards. In his book, Perennial Seller, Holiday explains how physically sorting his notes helps structure his books. Robert Greene uses thousands of cards to organise research for his complex narratives. The act of manually shuffling and rearranging these cards creates an intimate connection to the material that you just don’t get with a digital doc.

I came across this system on Ryan Holiday's blog years ago and never went back. It's exactly how I try to document new information and make sense of them too. I covered a bit of this here.

Sketching by hand

Sure, tools like Figma and Framer are all the rage, but let's look at the very inspiring Jony Ive — the designer behind some of the most iconic products of our generation.

Jony Ive sketches his designs before they ever see a computer screen. Why? Because hand-drawing forces you to slow down and think. Digital tempts you to focus on details too early, a pencil sketch keeps things simple. You’re working with the core idea, free from the distractions of pixel-perfect precision. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot faster when you’re brainstorming.

I highly recommend watching Objectified, The big vape and reading Jony Ive.

Whiteboards Over Screens

Jake Knapp’s popular Sprint method (that he developed at Google Ventures) encourages hand-drawn wireframes in the early stages of design to keep focus on the user journey and iterate fast.

Pen and paper may be slower, but when it comes to clarity & creativity, it still kicks ass!