I believe that the "real world" is a fallacy. Everyone has their own perception of reality. Furthermore, they can accept it or reject it. If working conditions preclude any sense of reward, accomplishment, progress, self-worth, yadda yadda, then the worker has to change the situation. That's not always easy, sure, but the alternative is to remain unhappy. Of course, I'm avoiding any definition of the term "happy". I changed jobs 6 months ago and I'm happy. Some days suck, the work is challenging, we struggle with personalities and processes and goals. But I'm learning, I'm contributing, people are communicating, and there is respect. If I can't get paid to race sports cars, ski mountains, fly airplanes, or climb mountains, then I'm happy.

Lab notebooks are great. I love them (and pens, and pencils, and, well... just geeking out at office supply stores).

But I switched to cloud-based documents for a few reasons: full text search, access from any (networked) computer, and I can type a lot faster than I can write. I am also able to keep a semi-useful GTD thing going just by using folders and documents on Google Drive. I recently discovered that drawing inside a Google doc isn't too bad and LucidChart is pretty cool too.

There are downsides from the perspectives of security and accessibility, for sure. And there's a tactile immediacy to writing on paper. So there will always be a place for paper and pencil in my world. But for storing and accessing the stuff that has left my scattered brain, it's hard to beat online technology.