Writing on your phone is fine for structured notes that aren’t going to change much but they really really suck for free form writing.

I use an A5 Leuchtturm1917 Weekly Planner for my work shifts, appointments, reminders, tasks, to do’s, etc. It has blank sections for each day allowing you to format your daily plan how you like and you can cross things out and add to it as needed (really great for paying bills as you can note it down then write “paid” next to it).

While you don’t get audible alerts from it, I have found that after using google calendars for years that 95% of the entries don’t need an audio alert & have the downside of disappearing from your notifications at the end of the scheduled time or day which can be a pain when you want to push a task to the next day. With pen and paper things stay until you mark them as done (and there is many different ways to do that).

I have a couple of A5 ruled notebooks for my lists, longer term to do lists, messages etc. When you cross something out it doesn’t disappear or move to another place in an app, it sits there easily visible for future reference or reminders.

There is certainly something freeing from using physical pen and paper to write how you want and structure your notes how they work for you without having to spread them across multiple apps.

• Need to make graphs or make plans or maps? Use graph or dot grid paper.
• Need to write structured notes? Use one of the many lined papers with your preferred line density and spacing.
• Want to free form your notes &/or draw? Use plain paper or sketch paper.
• Want to write music? Use paper printed with staff’s.
• Need to plan your day? Use one of the great many daily, weekly, monthly or yearly planners ranging from structured all the way to free form.
• Have a need to keep track of “to do’s”? There a great number of pads, notebooks, planners and journals that are all about to do lists (there are even systems that have set ways to mark items as in progress, on hold, completed, etc to make things more consistent).
• Want to keep a record of books, movies, recipes, plants, travel, babies etc? Guess what, there are journals formatted especially for these. topics

After trying to do 100% of my notes, planning, to do’s, reminders, etc on my phone for over 15 years and having constant issues with notification spam, missed reminders and finding information I have moved back to using planners and notebooks.

They allow me to write how I want, cross things out, add thing in, highlight, draw diagrams, maps, plans etc and most important of all it allows me to make mistakes and correct them.

I have found that I am reaching far less for my phone to look up daily plans & notes as I am remembering them more reliably after writing them down by hand.