While we do love digital, there’s nothing quite like the raspy feel of sharp pencil on textured paper. It feels more personal, somehow, and creative in a connected, direct way.

The company behind the Slice Planner has devised a nifty system that unites old-school paper with digital bells and whistles so we can appreciate our favorite elements of both worlds. The hybrid planning system makes it easy to use both mediums interchangeably and smoothly transfer info from notepad to phone to laptop and beyond.

So how did Slice Planner’s design come to life? CMO Max Lukominskyi says it draws from the classic clock face: “The core pillar of the approach is the radial diagram that is reminiscent of the analog clock that was designed to help visual thinkers (65 percent of people) to master their time and plan their activities in a more intuitive and convenient way.” The clock diagram is a simple way to help people picture the layout of their whole day at a glance.

The notepad itself comes in two versions. The handcrafted soft-covers are made from specially tanned and finished Italian leather — right now in both Ocean Blue and Desert Yellow. You can add paper refills to this notebook as necessary, and the leather will age, develop its own character, and get classier by the day. The hardcover planners are cloth-covered and sturdy. They come in Coral Orange and Steel Gray with a matching elastic band to hold them closed. Both types also have two bookmarks so you can quickly flip to the page you want in a snap.

The Slice Planner holds 224 pages of acid-free, high-quality Swedish paper. The designers made every left-hand page for planning and earmarked the right-hand side for sketching and writing down notes. They also added 10 perforated pages at the back of the book in case you need to pull them out. One of our particular gripes is even addressed: the Slice Planner’s pages are bound so they lie flat. No more bouncing back! Ahhhh.

The Slice Planner app is where the real magic happens. The hand-written events that you jot down in the planner can be added to your digital calendar so you can be on the same page (ahem) no matter which of your devices you’re looking at. “Titles of the events will be recognized by the optical character recognition that is powered by Google Cloud Vision,” Lukominskyi adds, noting that the end result depends on your handwriting. (We think that’s code for “Write neatly….”)

In general, it connects the notepad to your digital life. For example, the Augmented Reality Mode will alert you to potential schedule conflicts. Simply hold it over your paper planner, and the app will highlight overlapping events in red, giving you a chance to make adjustments. There’s a cropping feature, too, that lets you save part of a page and ignore those random doodles we’re all guilty of scribbling now and again. Then, when you’re finished, the app lets you send your notes and sketches by email, upload them to the cloud or mark one of the icons at the foot of the page to add them to an event that’s already on your calendar!

Want a visual explanation? Check out how Slice Planner’s event digitizing works!