"Writing by hand is good for your brain", but it does not say the habit or behavior can help you achieve some success, many achievements, especially the more significant ones need a complicated system and long-term hard work (remember 10000 hours theory?)
Writing by hand is good for your brain
201–210 of 708 posts
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#202A 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 buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…
Obviously (I hope), once you've grafittied your book, you shouldn't sell it as unaltered!
That doesn't mean scribbling in your own book is wrong.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#203I agree with the content of the post.
It does feel like a post stating things that are obvious, were someone not blinded by technology.
Curious if others have noticed a trend of going back to "old school" methods, once there is research etc around it. Seems like you can have just not used the new flashy thing.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#204A 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 buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…
There is nothing wrong with scribbling in your own books.
There is also nothing wrong with donating such books with clearly written disclaimer on the front page about the condition of the book.
Repackaging as 99% likenew and selling them should be a crime though.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#205> I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but I can say that, Aaaaaand time to tune out.
Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy. Perverse incentives exist in every domain, and you cannot discount the human factor. The experts can be wrong.
I don't think this is appeal to authority (or the reverse, I guess). Neuroscience is complex, being a scientist/doctor is one signal that the observations here would be based on/reflective of a large body of knowledge. Probably GP's unstated point is that the author isn't a scientist/doctor and they also haven't studied/read up on their own either.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#206> If the pen’s ink reservoir is partly empty, so that it contains an air bubble, and if it’s positioned nib down, then, when you go up in an airplane, the bubble will expand as the ambient pressure drops, forcing ink out the nib. Once I figured that out, I got in the habit of making sure my pens were positioned nib up when taking off in an airplane. If I have time I’ll also refill the pen before departure, to minimiz…
Yes, I've had to learn this one the hard way, too. And more than once, I have to admit.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#207A 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 buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture. "Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick. It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you…
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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. I hate it when people do this. Please don't. If you must, do it sparingly and for the love of all that's good please do not cross out words or sentences. The only thing I can forgive is people who quote a particular paragraph they liked about the book in one of the first pages where there's enough blank space. It's a personal tou…
> But please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it. How would someone writing in their copy of a book impact your ability to enjoy your own copy? Relax, it's their property and it's not criminal, so let them do what they want instead of trying to dictate rules.
Because I inherited the copy, maybe as a gift or bought at a used books shop? It's obvious from context I'm speaking of books that ended up with me, otherwise how would I even know they scribbled all over them?
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#209today I posted a show HN that got insta-flagged by an AI detector. I had written the post then gone back and forth with claude, getting to a refined version I thought was much better. claude said it would hit way better with hn (me?).
after getting flagged I found the original, reposted, and it is actually so much better. not polished, not a masterpiece, I'm nowhere close to a professional writer. But it's like a human story with the marks of human care.
i fear my brain's getting smoothed down by reading all the generation and I need to drop the AI crutch for a while, at least for copy/writing.
Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain
#210A 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.
I once borrowed a technical book from my school library, and the previous owner who donated that book in the 90s circled the phrase "proof is left to the readers" commonly found grad math book and wrote a big "W.T.F?". It made me laugh so much hha