For years I was against the idea of paper planners. I thought they were cumbersome, wasteful and, in the age of Google Calendar, simply unnecessary. The pinnacle of redundancy.

Friends, I was so, so truly wrong.

There are both concrete and intangible benefits of using a paper planner to structure your life, goals and tasks. Physically writing out the way I want to organize my day brings a sense of ownership and responsibility that I never feel from typing it into my laptop or telling Siri to handle it. It’s a tangible manifestation of your goals you can hold in your hands, which to me adds permanence and accountability.

My favorite paper planner is the Self Journal, which helps you plan your day, write goal-oriented to-do lists, track progress toward long-term goals and more. (My favorite feature is that it forces you to build time for reflection daily and weekly.) Wirecutter, a New York Times company that reviews and recommends products, has a ton of great planner picks, too.

And yes, I am fully aware that I’m very late to the pro-paper-planner party — Smarter Living, of all places, has argued for them. But if you’re like me and always wrote them off, give them a try. In the short time I’ve been using one, it has affected my productivity in ways few other things have.