THE NEW YORK TIMES
'THE REVENGE OF ANALOG': SEE IT. TOUCH IT. FEEL IT.

"Old-school paper notebooks and erasable whiteboards are the go-to technology among many Silicon Valley types, and even typewriters are enjoying a renaissance in today’s post-Snowden, surveillance-conscious era.

In his captivating new book, “The Revenge of Analog,” the reporter David Sax provides an insightful and entertaining account of this phenomenon, creating a powerful counternarrative to the techno-utopian belief that we would live in an ever-improving, all-digital world. Mr. Sax argues that analog isn’t going anywhere, but is experiencing a bracing revival that is not just a case of nostalgia or hipster street cred, but something more complex."
From the New York Times | December 2016

MCKENZIE STEUBER
A MILLION THANKS TO YOUTUBE REVIEWER MCKENZIE STEUBER FOR HER VIDEO REVIEW OF THE C4 ARCHER

From McKenzie Steuber | October 2016

QUARTERLY.CO
FITNESS GURU ADAM BORNSTEIN CURATES QUARTERLY.CO'S LATEST BIOHACK BOX -- AND INCLUDES THE ARCHER PLANNER

The Active System Company would like to sincerely thank Adam Bornstein of Born Fitness and Sarah McLellan at Quarterly.Co for including the Archer Planner in their September/October 2016 Biohack Box. It is truly an honor. For those of you who don't know Adam, his bio is below and we worked together at Men's Health magazine. For those of you unfamiliar with Quarterly.Co, they are one of the best subscription commerce companies, where you subscribe to a life changing series of curated gift boxes. You pick your life change, and then subscribe to the appropriate box. Biohack, literary, culinary -- you pick the life change and they provide the inspiration every quarter. It's kind of like a self-improvement continuing education program you can love. I urge you to check them out. 

And if you're interested in Adam's Biohack Box, go check it out.

"Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the founder of Born Fitness, a company that specializes in personalized online fitness and diet coaching. Bornstein is an award-winning fitness and nutrition writer and editor, and has been named "one of the most influential people in health." He is the author of 7 books (including 3 fitness best sellers), is a columnist for Muscle & Fitness and Men’s Fitness, and a fitness advisor for Arnold Schwarzenegger. His work has been featured everywhere from The New York Times and Fast Company, to ESPN the Magazine and GQ. He was previously the editorial director for LIVESTRONG.COM and before that fitness editor for Men's Health. He has appeared on Good Morning America, E! News, The Adam Carolla Show, ABC, and NBC."
From Quarterly.Co | October, 2016

Lifehacker.com
Use The Medium Method to Combine Digital Note-Taking With Pen and Paper

"There are so many digital tools out there to help organize your notes and tasks, and those tools are great. They send you reminders. They help you automate your to-do list. They let you access your notes across multiple devices. However, writing things down on paper can help you focus and plot out ideas. It also helps you learn more effectively. To utilize the best of both worlds, writer Chad Hall suggests his technique, The Medium Method."
By Kristen Wong | June 1, 2016

The New York Times
Monotasking Gets a Makeover

"As much as people would like to believe otherwise, humans have finite neural resources that are depleted every time we switch between tasks, which, especially for those who work online, Ms. Zomorodi said, can happen upward of 400 times a day, according to a 2016 University of California, Irvine study. “That’s why you feel tired at the end of the day,” she said. “You’ve used them all up.” The term “brain dead” suddenly takes on a whole new meaning."
By Verena von Pfetten | April 29, 2016

Inc. Magazine
10 Daily Habits That Will Radically Improve Your Life

"Write every day and share what you know. Learn how to write better along the way. If you don't want to share your thoughts with the world, start a journal. I began a journal when I was nineteen and traveling through Europe. Now I read my entries to my daughters as bedtime stories."
By Chris Dessi, CEO, Silverback Social | April 26, 2016

The New York Review of Books
We are Hopelessly Hooked

"Harris argues that an “attention economy” is pushing us all to spend time in ways we recognize as unproductive and unsatisfying, but that we have limited capacity to control. Tech companies are engaged in “a race to the bottom of the brain stem,” in which rewards go not to those that help us spend our time wisely, but to those that keep us mindlessly pulling the lever at the casino."
By Jacob Weisberg | February 25, 2016

GQ MAGAZINE
My House is Smart, But it Won't Shut up

"Our homes are smartening up so fast that we're already at phase two: Now voice control is taking over the place. Siri, Alexa, and a few of their closest frenemies are moving in, and it's starting to feel a little cramped in here." 
By Jon Wilde | February 22, 2016

INC. MAGAZINE
The Ancient Productivity Tool That Will Boost Your Brain Power

"It's cheap and portable, it has unlimited battery life, and it might just make your brain, and your employee's brains, work better. ... The brain reacts differently--research says better--when you use paper and not a computer ... Research shows that working on a computer, as opposed to paper, saps concentration and willpower. Cal Newport, an author and professor at Georgetown University, argues in his new book, Deep Work, that achieving ultra-focus on a single task is a key to boosting productivity, and he's convinced that working on paper is a great way to do that. (To arrive at the mathematical theorems that make up the bulk of his research, he writes by hand in a notebook.)"
By Saki Knafo | February 2016

NPR MORNING EDITION
"IN A DIGITAL CHAPTER, PAPER NOTEBOOKS ARE AS RELEVANT AS EVER"

Paper, Trinidad says, makes the abstract tangible, in a way that digital devices don't.

"I feel there's a huge need for paper in this increasingly digital world," she adds. "I look at my planner and I think of it as my second brain. I look back at something on there and it's like, 'Oh, I wrote that.' "

I know what she means. As a writer, no work feels complete until I hit the print button and it's on paper. Maybe, though, Angelia and I are both dinosaurs, albeit from different generations.

But some recent research suggests otherwise. Pam Mueller was a teaching assistant for an introductory psychology class at UCLA. One day, she forgot to bring her laptop to class.

"So I took notes, you know, the old-fashioned way, the way I did in college — pen and paper," she explains. "I thought I got so much more out of the lecture that day." 

She mentioned this to her professor, Daniel Oppenheimer. It turns out that he had a similar experience in a faculty meeting. He was dutifully taking notes on his laptop but realized he had no idea what people were saying.

Oppenheimer and Mueller wondered if there was something about paper and the act of writing that explained this phenomenon, so they conducted an experiment.

They asked about 50 students to attend a lecture. Half took notes on laptops and half with pen and paper. Both groups were then given a comprehension test.

It wasn't even close. The students who used paper scored significantly higher than those who used laptops.
By Eric Weiner | May 2015