Paper appointment books

The paper book had one advantage over most software: nobody needed to reboot it. It also had coffee stains, eraser crumbs, and exactly as much space as the printer gave you in March.

Feature	What worked	What did not
15-minute slots	Good for short visits and tight mornings.	Rows became unreadable when a name, phone note, and new time had to share one line.
30-minute slots	Less cramped, easier to initial.	Too coarse for offices that squeezed in quick checks and call-backs.
Split columns	Useful for multiple rooms or practitioners.	Arrows between columns looked like a small highway map by noon.
Pencil entries	Forgiving when the phone rang again.	Old eraser marks turned the page gray.
Ink entries	Readable and final-looking.	Only final until somebody asked for Thursday.

What I save

I save blank sheets and generic samples, not private records. The useful details are the time grid, column width, and how much room the book left for a surname that did not fit.