The Trouble With Making Everything Easier

Is analogue making a comeback?

Maybe. But perhaps that isn't quite the right question.

In this episode of Stationery Freaks, Helen and Rob wander and meander through notebooks, video games (yes, you read that right), typewriters, old cars, AI-generated music, writing retreats, Hobonichis, Moleskines and the pleasure of making things slightly harder than they need to be.

• Helen has become unexpectedly absorbed in an online game. Of course, this comes complete with colour-coded plans and strategies in her Hobonichi.
• Rob has repurposed the writing bureau specifically for finishing his squirrel book — and then written exactly zero words in it.

There is a pattern somewhere in here.

We've spent years removing friction from everything. Digital tools make things faster. AI makes things easier. Algorithms make decisions for us. We're told to optimise everything and digital is wonderfully good at doing that optimisation.

And yet some of the things we value most seem to require the opposite. And maybe that's really what people are reclaiming.

A notebook takes longer than a notes app. A typewriter is considerably slower than a laptop. An old car requires actual participation and focus. Sketching before opening a computer gives an idea time to breathe. Even spending an hour playing a game can feel more restorative than another hour scrolling.

Maybe it's not a rise of just analogue. Maybe analogue is just one of the ways to regain some control over what we actually think.

Well, that's where we ended up anyway - of course, it wasn't a straight line to get there.

Along the way we discuss:

• Rob's Department of Interesting Things
• Helen's beloved Hobonichi
• A fascinating shop called Labour and Wait
• Moleskines and banning digital
• Apple Notes for voice memos and early drafts
• As well as writing rituals, the appeal of analogue travel kits, and the excellent YouTube channel of John Pattison.

It's a slightly rambling conversation, as usual, about stationery that turns into something else entirely: what happens when we stop trying to make every minute productive?

And whether a little friction might actually be good for us.

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After a few months away — and a very welcome "petition of one" from Stacy in Florida — Rob and Helen are back.

Rob has been building a public commonplace: twenty-five years of learning, typed onto index cards (possibly breaking his typewriter in the process) and slowly taking over his studio wall. Helen has been redistributing her notebook collection to a room of grateful authors, which may or may not count as cheating in the great notebook challenge. See original hoarding cast here and a revisit to the challenge of using notebooks here.

Along the way: why old publishing offices were built around attention rather than productivity, a typewritten daily planning ritual that's quietly replaced Todoist, the strange magnetism of Midori paper, a beautiful Japanese storage haul, giving away index cards to parents and why the whole world seems to be drifting back to analogue.

It's like old times. Which is rather the point of the cast.
It's good to be back.

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In this episode of Stationery Freaks, Rob and Helen dig into the messy, essential world of scrap notes: desk pads, Post-its, legal pads, envelopes, voice memos, and the “grab whatever’s nearby” capture habit.

They explore the real question beneath the stationery: what’s the process for turning a quick note into something useful — and what happens when your capture system becomes a pile of open loops.

We cover:

• Why scrap notes exist: capturing ideas without breaking the moment
• Desk pads as “work in progress” surfaces (and why that’s a feature, not a bug)
• The threshold problem: forgetting what you went to write down the moment you change rooms
• Analog vs digital: how Rob and Helen bounce between both
• The discipline of finishing: why ideas aren’t valuable until they become something
• A practical “funnel” approach: backlog → sprouts → now (commitment increases as you narrow)
• The emotional side: cluttered desks = cluttered minds, and why clearing down helps you think
• Listener shout-outs and the surprisingly global reach of Stationery Freaks

Listener request:
Share your stationery “in the wild” or your desk setup on Instagram (doesn’t have to be pretty!) and tag @stationeryfreaksuk.

We mention:

• Mark+Fold “Glow” notebook
• Noted (Substack) by Jillian Hess
• “Analog Attorney” series (Attorney at Work) by Bull Garlington