Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#131

Post by inferense » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

_-_-__-_-_- wrote: post #29

headbee wrote: post #4

I can attest to this and took all of my notes on paper in college. However, once I started a real job I realized that this strategy doesn't scale to all situations. In college, I needed to be able to recall all of the information I had ingested: it was low-write, high-read. In the workplace, there's much more information, but I'm unlikely to need most of it: it's high-write, low-read. I need to be able to reference t…

What are you using the host your wiki and write markdown? I'm looking at self-hosting a similar system.

not OP (and biased) but I'm building https://acreom.com to do this and to support my own dev workflow. Made it into a product after realising other devs like it too.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#132

Post by lzooz » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

elevation wrote: post #118

Handwriting may be a good way to reinforce what you've already learned. But it can also act as a crutch which disengages your brain before you've processed new information more deeply. I have a coworker who hand writes nearly all technical information spoken in meetings and 1 on 1 conversations, and yet remains incredibly ineffective at recall. The problem is she lacks a mental model of the topic, so she has no struc…

I think your coworker is simply daft.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#133

Post by DoughnutHole » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

elevation wrote: post #118

Handwriting may be a good way to reinforce what you've already learned. But it can also act as a crutch which disengages your brain before you've processed new information more deeply. I have a coworker who hand writes nearly all technical information spoken in meetings and 1 on 1 conversations, and yet remains incredibly ineffective at recall. The problem is she lacks a mental model of the topic, so she has no struc…

Sounds to me like her note-taking is pretty critical for her.

It's very difficult to piece together cause and affect here. Is her memory & mental model bad because she's using notes as a "crutch", or is that crutch the only reason she's functional in any way. To expand on the crutch analogy, if someone has a game leg taking away their crutch isn't going to improve their walking.

Speaking as someone who has problems with working memory, I take a lot of notes because I can't trust my brain to effectively parse what requires long term storage. I might understand everything perfectly clearly, and then days/hours/minutes later it's gone.

Note-taking prevents information being lost to the aether, and revision helps commit stuff to long term memory.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#134

Post by grenoire » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:33 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #119

WalterBright wrote: post #82

Yup. The way to attend a lecture is to leave your laptop behind. Take a cheap spiral notebook and a couple colored pens. Take notes. Once the notebook is filled (or the semester is over) scan the pages, toss the notebook, and buy a fresh one for the next semester. It works, from much personal experience You're welcome! 1. yes, sometimes I fall behind the lecturer taking notes, which can be a bit frustrating 2. while…

This never worked for me. The physical process of writing is just so slow and awkward that it distracts me and inhibits learning. Yes, I tried using higher quality pens and different writing techniques. Nothing really helped. So forget writing by hand, for me it's worse than useless. YMMV.

Practice improves this, I suppose as you age it's harder to get that commitment to becoming a speedy note-taker, but I share the sentiment among many that speed is not necessarily a deal breaker. I can barely decipher my scribbles after the fact, but doubling down on the neural pathways is a deal breaker.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#135

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

elevation wrote: post #118

Handwriting may be a good way to reinforce what you've already learned. But it can also act as a crutch which disengages your brain before you've processed new information more deeply. I have a coworker who hand writes nearly all technical information spoken in meetings and 1 on 1 conversations, and yet remains incredibly ineffective at recall. The problem is she lacks a mental model of the topic, so she has no struc…

[deleted]

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#136

Post by SoftTalker » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #106

This reminds me of the Steve Jobs comment [1] about condors and bicycles: “I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then some…

Probably true for facts that you need to be able to recall without consulting notes.

Most of my notes are not that. I mostly don't need unassisted recall. Spaced repetition memorization of everything I write down in my notebook would be very inappropriate and an inefficient use of my time and memory resources.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#137

Post by sevensor » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #101

headbee wrote: post #4

I can attest to this and took all of my notes on paper in college. However, once I started a real job I realized that this strategy doesn't scale to all situations. In college, I needed to be able to recall all of the information I had ingested: it was low-write, high-read. In the workplace, there's much more information, but I'm unlikely to need most of it: it's high-write, low-read. I need to be able to reference t…

I still do it and it has worked for me from being an individual contributor, to leading a team, to leading a part of the org that has a tree of ~50 people across multiple contexts. The way I see it, if you know the best way to retain information, why would you stop using it. I note down almost everything during meetings, 1-1s, agile rituals, etc. Very rarely I move things to a computer, most things I just need to wri…

Likewise. Same reasons, same process, and I've found it just as helpful in middle management as I did when I was an individual contributor.

There's an additional benefit. This is the reason I started doing it in the first place: many years ago, as a junior engineer, I was obliged to spend long hours in daily meetings. I found that the only way I could avoid actually falling asleep was to take detailed, copious notes. It was only afterwards that I discovered I was retaining information better and forming a big-picture view of the work. Also, what took me another decade to discover, is that nice stationery -- which for me means a fountain pen and a good notebook -- can make this a positive pleasure.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#138

Post by bostonsre » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

DoughnutHole wrote: post #133

elevation wrote: post #118

Handwriting may be a good way to reinforce what you've already learned. But it can also act as a crutch which disengages your brain before you've processed new information more deeply. I have a coworker who hand writes nearly all technical information spoken in meetings and 1 on 1 conversations, and yet remains incredibly ineffective at recall. The problem is she lacks a mental model of the topic, so she has no struc…

Sounds to me like her note-taking is pretty critical for her. It's very difficult to piece together cause and affect here. Is her memory & mental model bad because she's using notes as a "crutch", or is that crutch the only reason she's functional in any way . To expand on the crutch analogy, if someone has a game leg taking away their crutch isn't going to improve their walking. Speaking as someone who has problems…

I would guess her handwriting words per minute is not fast enough to keep up with conversations. I would find it difficult to pay attention and understand stuff if I'm constantly trying to drain the buffer of words coming in and I would have to start throwing some 409s and would miss some stuff. At least with typing, I can keep up with conversations when I need to take notes for a given discussion.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#139

Post by PetitSasquatch » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

There is a big difference between note-taking and critical analysis by hand.

I use pen and paper for organising thought and critically engaging with text I'm reading.

Unequivocally, it is a far superior method for me than typing, in the early phase of digesting new / difficult information.

Once the initial cognitive hurdle has passed, typing in long form is also helpful for recall.

Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information

#140

Post by type-r » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

hkon wrote: post #117

keiferski wrote: post #106

This reminds me of the Steve Jobs comment [1] about condors and bicycles: “I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then some…

I find that most times the goal is just to have the information, and when you write it down by hand in the first place you're more likely to remember it. Seems overkill to put more effort into it.

It depends on how adept you are at creating cards, I think. If you have a non-manual pipeline that automates most of the work, I think the lifetime cost of reviewing a card a few times is comparable to writing out the same information out by hand. The difference with the card is that now this information is there for life, instead of for a few days/weeks with writing.

Agree that if we're talking about manual creation of cards, it can be hard to see the ROI given how much effort it typically takes to create high-quality one-off questions and answers.