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Writing by hand is good for your brain

nealstephenson.substack.com

111–120 of 708 posts

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#112

> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried. Does anyone have any other a…

There is a technique where you keep your hand almost still and move the whole arm instead.

https://youtu.be/-F8SA_QySkc?is=z0P7I8loxuHVwKXn

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#114
This was my personal trick at the university. I was writing down all the notes during classes, even at the ugliest of my handwriting, but after classes insat down and rewrote the whole Notes in a better and clear way, so I was directly storing information in my brain.

I just needed to re-read the better notes 1 or 2 times and I could already recall the information, even at distance of time.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#116
post #34

I switched from an Obsidian fanboy to only writing by hand, and I'm never going back. It seemed preposterous to put notes in something I can't back up or "CTRL+F" search, but I've found that yes, sometimes I spend two minutes looking for a note, but when I do I generally never have to look up that information again... as opposed to things I'd search Obsidian for constantly that seemed to never get stored in my brain.

In my first job, my supervisor gave me a Day Timer binder and set of pages for it and I very dependent on it within a few weeks. That thing was always with me and I was a little terrified that I would leave it somewhere. If I were hit by a bus and they gave that book to my replacement, they would have no problem picking up where I left off.

Then I got a series of Palm Pilot devices and left the paper behind. It worked pretty well for me and the grafitti handwriting system was ingenious. Aside from my contact list being duplicated a few times a year, I didn't really have any negative experiences.

Then smart phones hit and even though they can do everything any electronic organizer ever did for me, I've never been as happy with them.

I'm seriously considering buying a paper planner again. Shared calendars is the only thing blocking me.

I love Obsidian too, but for me it's just a place where I park notes for future reference. I don't actively use it.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#117
Does anyone here handwrite a blog? I've been thinking about doing that, but I'd be interested in how people accomplish it. Personally, I'd like this to be a hobby that gets me away from screens, so I'm looking to focus more on handwriting and minimize how much I'd need to interact with a digital device.

"Paper Website" seems appealing, but I haven't tried it yet: https://paperwebsite.com/

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#118

A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding. Don’t get caught up tr…

I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest. A tiny glimpse into a stranger's thinking as they processed the same pages I just did. Thoughts they may never have shared anywhere else, that may not have made sense to anyone anywhere else. A secret code only for people who just read the last few pages. Shockingly intimate.

You might appreciate this one :) https://allpoetry.com/Marginalia

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#119
> It might then seem reasonable to think that writing with a stylus on an iPad or similar would be best, since no force is needed and friction is minimized. I don’t think this is true. A small amount of friction is actually desirable.

I find digital handwriting quite pleasant and almost better than writing on paper. Friction is indeed an issue, but you can just buy a dedicated screen protector to address this problem.

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