Let me tell you how much I love papers and pens…
Back when I was still young, having born as the eldest of three siblings, the family was barely coping with a new lifestyle. My father was a technician, and my mom was working on her own business. There wasn't enough for my schooling.
Most of my schooling days were spent as a scholar, enjoying free tuition and books.. all I had to do was study,.. study well that is. When I got to college, I was privileged enough to belong to the top 4% of the successful UPCAT examinees. I was able to get into UP Diliman College of Engineering and took up Computer Science.
Back at this time, I haven't got my own PC and have never tinkered anything at all that is related to computers. So, you can say that I am still young in the computing world (or maybe relatively young with respect to my batchmates). I had to deal with a lot of learning and adjustment.
We take quick 15-20 minute exercises which never failed to make me nervous all the time because I never had the chance to practice what I learn from the books for from the lecture. I have always depended on my working knowledge alone. I would always quibble at the sight of my favorite professor (who I idolize so much til now). He has instilled in me the love of coding on paper, because that was the only way I can prepare for his upcoming quiz.
I didn't have my own set of books nor reading materials. I only had a couple of hours each time I can log onto the Engineering Computer Room (ECR) to muse at the libraries and function names of the Turbo C library. From this point on, I'd try to create small programs on my small pocket size notebook to practice my coding skills. I had to deliberately debug my code on paper until I feel I can try typing it away in a computer. This was how I lived my Computer Science days in college. I got my own PC (which was a hand-me-down from my Uncle) which was a Pentium II 233MHz PC when I reached my fourth year. (hehe.., nasty)
Right now, it makes me wonder why a lot of people waste computing time, when I can definitely recall the time that my prof was explainnig stuffs about the punch cards and how every hour was valuable for the programmers. Sometimes when I needed to think and concentrate a lot, I still write my code on paper.
When you write on paper, you get ot see the whole picture and get to nderstand where you can attack the faults in your thoughts. sitting infront of the PC doesn't necessarily mean that you are as productive as you ought to be. Programmers of this time rely much on their IDEs and online/digital references. Sure, they help a lot, but the lack of PC shouldn't necessarily mean lack of thoughts or logic.
Think about it. Write it down. Plan before attacking the problem. It can save time, rather than coding then rehashing over and over again.
Up to this time, I still have the native organizer in hand all the time. .paper and pen. 