3 things my Kindle Scribe replaced (and the one thing it couldn't)

Paper checklists

But not Apple Notes checklists

Before the Scribe, I used to rely on tear-off stationery notepads for my checklists. There was nothing more satisfying than writing down a task and taking a thick, colored marker through it when it was completed. They were little dopamine hits that made it easy to get through a busy workday, and that was a feeling I was convinced wouldn't exist in digital format.

Oh, how wrong I was. Unlimited digital pages meant unlimited lists of to-do tasks, and I could check off completed items with a marker exactly like I did before -- the only difference was that I couldn't use my colored pens. But then, when it was time for a fresh page, I wasn't throwing paper in the trash like I would every single day with a physical notepad.

That, and I never left my to-do lists behind -- even if I forgot the Scribe at home. All my notebooks synced up with the Kindle app on my phone, so no matter what, I had access to my task list.

Daily and weekly planners

No more losing my place in hundreds of pages

One of the Scribe's many boons is its rich variety of templates that mimic popular traditional paper and organizational formats, like:

• Blank
• Lined (narrow-ruled, medium-ruled, wide-ruled, and with margins)
• Vertical lined (and with margins)
• Grid
• Dotted
• Checklist
• Daily, Weekly, and Monthly planners
• Habit trackers
• Story boards
• Sheet music

This is where I immediately dropped my paper planners -- both my spiral-bound daily agenda and my tear-off weekly paper pad -- in favor of two new notebooks. The built-in daily and weekly planners quickly became my favorite templates and still are the ones I spend the most time in, even more so than my daily checklist.

Plus, if I oversleep and have to rearrange my daily time-blocking schedule, I don't have to waste an entire page of my agenda. Instead, I can use the circle-tool to select the text I want to delete or move and do so. No wasted paper, and no destroying the precious eraser at the end of a pencil.

The half-dozen random notebooks scattered over my desk

It decluttered my workspace (and my brain)

One of the banes of my desktop is the six or seven composition notebooks and leather-bound journals strewn across it. My brain tends to think of everything all at once, so I must keep all of my respective notebooks close by, so I don't miss a chance to write my next million-dollar idea down. The notebooks range from story ideas to grocery lists, and even little poems that come to mind when I should be instead writing a story on -- say -- Kindle Scribe uses.

The problem with that was if one of those ideas came to mind, I'd open two or three of the notebooks before I found the one I was looking for, which defeated the whole point of staying "organized" that way. That quickly changed with the Scribe.

The notebooks may not have been colorful or fancily bound in Italian leather, but they were labelable and only two or three taps away. More ideas make it to the drawing board since I've used the Kindle Scribe, and my paper notebooks are sitting in a nice stack in the corner. An aesthetic win.

What the Kindle Scribe couldn't replace

My paper wall calendar

The one thing my Kindle Scribe didn't make more convenient was my monthly planning. Sometimes when I'm planning my day or week, I consistently look up at my wall calendar to check in on plans I had made days, weeks, or even months before and make sure I'm not overbooking myself. It's much easier to take a glance at the wall while I'm already taking notes in one notebook of my Scribe than close out one notebook, open another, and maybe even forget what I was doing in the first place while I was at it.

Plus, the large one sitting on my wall isn't just functional -- it matches the decor of my apartment. This is one place I can't fathom giving up my colored pens and pencils, and the Scribe just doesn't have the same pizzazz there.