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Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

productivegrowth.substack.com

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Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#61

Post by michaelrpeskin »

fatnoah wrote: post #20
samuell wrote: post #16

One aspect the article doesn't mention is spatiality, and how that aids memorizing. As you might know one very common technique used by memorizing masters is to place things you want to remember in some imagined 3D world. This effect is also something I've experienced strongly myself when listening to audiobooks while running. I figured I can actually remember the exact place along my running route in a nearby forest…

Very interesting! In college, I strongly experienced the phenomena of taking a test and not being able to remember the exact content, but could accurately remember the layout of the page that the data was on. I also got into the habit of creating 1 or 2 page cheat sheets for tests, whether I could use them in the test or not, and the spatial organization of the data seemed to correlate very directly with my ability t…

Yes! Same thing for me. I’m a bit dyslexic so reading things never goes well. But I could always remember where on the page the equations were in the textbooks. So during a test, I’d picture the equations and where they were and the write them down so that I could use them.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#62

Post by jscipione »

WalterBright wrote: post #15
briandoll wrote: post #11

This is one of the reasons I've started to use the reMarkable tablet for taking notes. Sometimes I don't even look at them again, it's just a more efficient way to get the info into my head. I wrote more about my current workflow/stack here if anyone is interested (w/ some reMarkable hacks): https://briandoll.medium.com/personal-setup-for-getting-shit...

I take notes in a $.79 spiral paper notebook. When it fills up, I just scan it and get another one.

Single subject notebooks got me through college.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#63

Post by hypersoar »

1980phipsi wrote: post #32
samuell wrote: post #16

One aspect the article doesn't mention is spatiality, and how that aids memorizing. As you might know one very common technique used by memorizing masters is to place things you want to remember in some imagined 3D world. This effect is also something I've experienced strongly myself when listening to audiobooks while running. I figured I can actually remember the exact place along my running route in a nearby forest…

I have aphantasia (i.e. no visual imagination). It hadn't occurred to me that people could use theirs to help them memorize things...

I have very little visual imagination and have experienced the audiobook/running thing a lot, but only in one direction. Running by the same place will often make me think of something I heard there, but thinking about something I heard doesn't bring back the place.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#64

Post by jfoutz »

anyfoo wrote: post #23
samuell wrote: post #16

One aspect the article doesn't mention is spatiality, and how that aids memorizing. As you might know one very common technique used by memorizing masters is to place things you want to remember in some imagined 3D world. This effect is also something I've experienced strongly myself when listening to audiobooks while running. I figured I can actually remember the exact place along my running route in a nearby forest…

Spatiality, that's it. It really seems to make a tremendous difference for me to know where something is written down, and sometimes even remembering doing it. I always felt that doing it on a computer was indeed too abstract, losing that spatiality. I also agree with the audiobook thing. For example, I recently thought back to a passage in an audiobook I enjoyed... and my mind instantly visualized how I was standing…

I wish I could find the reference, there's an old Roman (Greek? likely older?) rhetorical trick to public speaking.

The speech flows as you invite people to your home, and walk them through it. So, the front door is like the greeting, welcoming guests into your home. The picture in the front room is the first point, the couch is the next point. the dining room table is the next point. etc.

practice the speech by looking at each item you select, and mapping it to the point.

It's pretty amazing.

Everyone knows what their living space is like, and hopefully it's a safe comfortable space. Anyone can talk for a long time without notes. The memory of home is emotionally calming. Inviting listeners in gives a warmth that's hard to explain.

I mean, rehearsing helps a lot too, but mapping talking points to objects in the home is an amazing trick.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#65

Post by WalterBright »

SiVal wrote: post #59
WalterBright wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take notes in a $.79 spiral paper notebook. When it fills up, I just scan it and get another one.

Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages? I like paper notebooks, too. Someday, I'd like to have an app that would let me turn any ordinary stack of scratch paper or notebook into a searchable PDF in under 5 minutes. I would finish a notebook and just put my phone on a gooseneck stand and turn the pages one at a time (not riffle) at one page per second or two, and it would know when to take t…

> Can you recommend a quick, easy method for scanning all the pages?

The trick is to use a hopper fed scanner that scans both sides at the same time. Not a flat bed scanner.

I use an old Fujitsu fi-5120C scanner.

I haven't found an OCR yet that will decipher handwriting. I would think that with all the advances in AI this would be an easy problem.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#67

Post by echelon »

WalterBright wrote: post #15
briandoll wrote: post #11

This is one of the reasons I've started to use the reMarkable tablet for taking notes. Sometimes I don't even look at them again, it's just a more efficient way to get the info into my head. I wrote more about my current workflow/stack here if anyone is interested (w/ some reMarkable hacks): https://briandoll.medium.com/personal-setup-for-getting-shit...

I take notes in a $.79 spiral paper notebook. When it fills up, I just scan it and get another one.

Scanning sounds like a pain.

eInk tablets are the future and confer all the advantages of pen and paper. Perhaps they need to undergo a few more generations of UI improvement, and the eInk company itself needs to have its patents expire so the tech isn't held up, but the experience is real. It's tactile, vibrant, and smooth. Battery life is never an issue, even with wifi.

The advantages of having notes always with you and being able to organize into folders and move sheets and figures around beats paper a thousand times over. Highlighting a figure, dragging it to a better spot, rotating it to an affine angle to give it life, and then resizing it to double size is an earth shattering experience.

Erasing, also, is finally a first class experience in a way it can never be with paper. You can even re-sort lists of items with ease.

I'll never go back to pen and paper.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#68

Post by timcameron »

jfoutz wrote: post #64
anyfoo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spatiality, that's it. It really seems to make a tremendous difference for me to know where something is written down, and sometimes even remembering doing it. I always felt that doing it on a computer was indeed too abstract, losing that spatiality. I also agree with the audiobook thing. For example, I recently thought back to a passage in an audiobook I enjoyed... and my mind instantly visualized how I was standing…

I wish I could find the reference, there's an old Roman (Greek? likely older?) rhetorical trick to public speaking. The speech flows as you invite people to your home, and walk them through it. So, the front door is like the greeting, welcoming guests into your home. The picture in the front room is the first point, the couch is the next point. the dining room table is the next point. etc. practice the speech by look…

I have heard the trick commonly referred to as 'memory palace' or 'method of loci'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#69

Post by caddemon »

JshWright wrote: post #44
1980phipsi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have aphantasia (i.e. no visual imagination). It hadn't occurred to me that people could use theirs to help them memorize things...

Yeah, I am familiar with this technique, and have tried using it in the past (as my "spatial" memory is very good, despite a total lack of visual imagination), but I've never been successful.

Interesting, how do you experience spatial memories? Is it somehow encoded verbally, or via somatosensation? Or does it feel completely subconscious, like a Pavlovian reaction? Or something else?

I am bad at visualizing things from what I can subjectively tell, but as far as memory is concerned it's mainly the spatial memory tests where I perform poorly. So it's hard for me to imagine what recalling spatial memories is like, besides the assumption that people can probably visualize them.

Re: Why I’m a sucker for pen and paper

#70

Post by ravi-delia »

echelon wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take notes in a $.79 spiral paper notebook. When it fills up, I just scan it and get another one.

Scanning sounds like a pain. eInk tablets are the future and confer all the advantages of pen and paper. Perhaps they need to undergo a few more generations of UI improvement, and the eInk company itself needs to have its patents expire so the tech isn't held up, but the experience is real. It's tactile, vibrant, and smooth. Battery life is never an issue, even with wifi. The advantages of having notes always with yo…

Erasing and dragging are enough to make my reMarkable worth it, but for random brainstorming I need real notebooks that I actually keep on hand. Never been sure why, something about having to physically locate my writing somewhere is huge for me.
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