The Evidence

We call our products evidence-based because they are, not because it sounds good on a label. This page is where that word gets proven. Every claim below links to a real, named study — with the limitations stated honestly, because that's what makes the rest of it believable.

If a claim about OCCO isn't backed by something on this page, we don't make it.

Handwriting vs screens Getting things out of your head Why paper on purpose How common this actually is What we don't claim Sources

Does writing by hand actually do anything a screen doesn't?

Yes — at least at the level of what's happening in the brain while you do it. A 2024 study used 256-channel EEG to compare handwriting and typing, and found that handwriting produced widespread patterns of connectivity between brain regions involved in memory formation and learning. Typing didn't produce the same patterns.1

The honest limitation: this was 36 university students, in one study. It's peer-reviewed and recent, but it's not a mountain of evidence — it's a genuinely strong single data point. We're not going to pretend it's more than that.

Why does getting things out of your head actually help?

Three separate strands of research point the same way.

Working memory — the mental workspace you use to hold and juggle things — has a small, hard capacity limit. It fills up fast.2 An unfinished task or an unresolved thought doesn't just sit there quietly; research on goal pursuit has found that unfinished goals keep intruding on your attention until you make a specific plan for them — and, notably, making the plan is what relieves the intrusion, not finishing the task itself.3 Separately, research on "cognitive offloading" — deliberately moving information out of your head and into your environment, onto a page, a list, a note — shows it's a rational strategy people use all the time to free up limited mental resources, not a shortcut or a weakness.4

Put together: your mind isn't broken for feeling full. It has a limited workspace, unfinished things occupy it until you write down a plan, and writing that plan down is a documented way to get the space back.

Why choose paper on purpose, when an app is right there?

Because the friction is doing something. Peer-reviewed consumer research has found that people deliberately choose "difficult" analogue tools — the ones that take more effort than the digital equivalent — because that effort produces a real feeling of personal agency, and counters a sense of alienation that comes from everything being frictionless and automated.5

That's the actual argument for a paper system over another app on your phone. Not nostalgia. The friction is the benefit, not the compromise.

How common is a mind that won't switch off, really?

More common than the conversation around it suggests. The NHS's own Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey found the following among English adults6:

13.9%screen positive for ADHD — roughly 6.5 million people
5.8%believe they have it
1.8%have an actual diagnosis

That gap — around 1.9 million adults who recognise the traits in themselves and have no diagnosis, no NHS support and no waiting-list end in sight — is who a lot of our products are genuinely built for.

You don't need a diagnosis to recognise yourself in that number, and you don't need one to use anything we make. No label required.

It's not just an ADHD conversation, either. A UK-wide survey found that 91% of workers experienced high or extreme pressure and stress in the past year, and one in five took time off because of it — rising to nearly four in ten workers under 25.7 A fast-moving, overloaded mind is closer to the default than the exception right now.

What we don't claim

To be straight with you: none of this is a clinical trial of our products. It's the published research that our design decisions are built on — why handwriting, why a fixed structure, why undated pages — not a peer-reviewed study of the Morning Mindset Journal itself. Some of it is a single study rather than a large body of evidence, and we've said so above rather than dressing it up.

Nothing here is medical or diagnostic advice, and nothing we sell is a substitute for professional support. If you think you might have ADHD and want an actual assessment, your GP is the right place to start, and organisations like Mind and the ADHD Foundation are genuinely useful while you wait. What we've built is equipment for a busy mind — not a treatment for one.

None of this is decoration — it's why the Morning Mindset Journal is built the way it is: a fixed structure, undated pages, made for handwriting rather than typing. £89, with a free Could Do Pad (worth £15) while stocks last, free UK delivery, and a 90-day no-questions guarantee.

Shop the Morning Mindset Journal

Sources

  1. Van der Weel, F.R. & Van der Meer, A.L.H. (2024). Frontiers in Psychology — EEG study comparing handwriting and typing, n=36 university students. ↑ back to text
  2. Cowan, N. (2001). Behavioral and Brain Sciences — the capacity limits of working memory. ↑ back to text
  3. Masicampo, E.J. & Baumeister, R.F. (2011). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — unfinished goals, intrusive thoughts, and the relief effect of specific plans. ↑ back to text
  4. Risko, E.F. & Gilbert, S.J. (2016). Trends in Cognitive Sciences — cognitive offloading as a rational strategy. ↑ back to text
  5. Beverland, M., Fernandez, K.V. & Eckhardt, G. (2024). Journal of Consumer Research, Vol 51, Issue 4 — why consumers deliberately choose "difficult" analogue technologies. ↑ back to text
  6. NHS England Digital, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/24, Chapter 9 (fieldwork March 2023 – July 2024) — ADHD screening, belief and diagnosis rates in English adults. ↑ back to text
  7. Mental Health UK / YouGov, Burnout Report 2026 (fieldwork 3–5 November 2025, n=4,502 UK adults) — workplace pressure and stress-related time off. ↑ back to text