For as long as I can remember, and across pretty much all of my thinking and writing tasks, I’ve been torn between using computers and using pen & paper.

By now, I keep my to-do list online (still in ToDoist), though I print it out each morning (from my trusty, highly-recommendable and cheap Brother HL-L2340DW), and work all day from the paper version.

I brainstorm and outline best on paper, but can draft and compose far faster on-screen.

And after recently converting the contents of a slew of separate Mac and iOS apps (Day One, Paprika, NVAlt, etc.) into a series of Evernote notebooks (as I’m now testing out using Evernote as my ‘everything bucket’), I’ve also taken to scanning all of my incoming mail, receipts, etc., into Evernote (primarily using their free Scannabale app), and lazily filing the physical papers by simply sticking all the stuff from a given month into a single file folder together (ie., “October ’15”).

Nonetheless, I also recently backed a Productivity Planner project on Kickstarter. Which, in turn, drove me to buy a Five Minute Journal, the prior project from the same designers.

I’m a pretty reliable journaler already, and in fact even previously used the outline of the Five Minute Journal questions as part of what I recorded daily in my digital journal file. But, as often turns out to be the case, there’s a difference between the experience in one medium versus the other. With the Five Minute Journal bedside, I’m more reliable at answering its short questions as the first thing I do when I wake up, and the last before I go to sleep.

So, consider a hard-copy Five Minute Journal – it seems to be making me happier, at least. And give some thought to which tools you use for your various pursuits. McLuhan may have overstated it, but if the message isn’t the medium, the medium still certainly very much matters.