The 10-minute trade.
This drives people insane.
“Why not just use an app?”
I picked up brown A5 paper and clear plastic sleeves this week. I’m making custom D&D spell cards. Written by hand. Updated every session based on what actually happened at the table. Slip them in the sleeve, use them in combat, pull them out when they’re obsolete.
The whole process takes maybe ten minutes per session. But those ten minutes do something an app never will.
I have apps for everything, I’m tech savvy.
Writing “Moonlit Melody” by hand makes me remember the range. The damage die. The save DC.
Not because I’m old school. Because the act of writing creates a different kind of memory than scrolling. The physical card in my hand during a fight makes me think about positioning differently than tapping a screen.
I’m not romanticizing paper. I’m recognizing what the manual process gives me that automation strips out.
Veteran pattern: do it manually first. Understand the system. Lock in the muscle memory. Then automate only what doesn’t cost you something worth keeping.
The spell cards cost me ten minutes and give me sharper play.
That’s a trade I keep making.
ABOUT THE 55/35 METHOD
Veteran intuition meets modern velocity. Pattern recognition from decades of cycles applied to today’s tools. We move fast. But we move with weight.
THE ARMORY
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V➤ The things you do manually when you could automate reveal what you actually value.