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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

#21

Post by krrrh »

com2kid wrote: post #5
pgcm1 wrote: post #2

I never knew why I unconsciously chose analog over digital in those cases, but it turns out there's a scientific explanation. When we write, we make our brains go through an abstraction process - separating something from a whole to analyze it by itself.- According to neurologist Audrey Van Der Meer, "It seems that keyboards and pens bring into play different underlying neurological processes. This may not be surpris…

Every time this topic comes up, I am curious to see a cross-generational study. I'd also be interested in seeing the result of taking notes with a less linear note taking tool, such as OneNote and its infinite canvas, compared to pure linear note taking. Now for most math classes, and other subjects that involve lots of diagrams, hand writing (digital or analog) is better! (Ignoring the people who are so good at LaTe…

There was also the transitionary period where teachers and profs would print slides onto transparencies and project those onto a screen. The overhead projectors sometimes had a roll of plastic that they could write on with a felt marker either over the slides or as a blank canvas. A bit of googling reveals that many primary schools still use these, and not all have transitioned to “smart boards”.

It was a good trade off, and it’s kind of surprising that the rise of tablets and styluses hasn’t seen this hybrid model return.

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

#22

Post by majormajor »

I find typing perfectly adequate for remembering things - in school if I was copying out notes I did just as well typing as handwritten, and could do it faster (and so get more repetition in) on a computer. Both blew away just reading or listening passively.

However, for brainstorming or planning, which is a lot of what this article is talking about, the unbounded spatial component of paper (or a drawing app with stylus) is much better for me than the constrained nature of a word processor. Something like graphviz isn't bad for certain types of things, but anything that relies on mouse-based selection and dragging of things breaks my flow in a way that jotting a new note off to the edge of an open paper doesn't.

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

#23

Post by anyfoo »

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 in front of the washing machine, doing laundry, while I listened to it.

A weird thing though is that some concepts and topics in my mind bring up images of locations that have nothing to do with the topic itself, and as far as I can tell don't match up in time. For example, one recent rather abstract concept is associated with the parking lot of my old school seen from a certain angle--many many years earlier.

I imagine that in those cases I might have been thinking about both the old school and the abstract concept at somewhat the same time, and they got associated from then on.

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

#24

Post by BitwiseFool »

com2kid wrote: post #5
pgcm1 wrote: post #2

I never knew why I unconsciously chose analog over digital in those cases, but it turns out there's a scientific explanation. When we write, we make our brains go through an abstraction process - separating something from a whole to analyze it by itself.- According to neurologist Audrey Van Der Meer, "It seems that keyboards and pens bring into play different underlying neurological processes. This may not be surpris…

Every time this topic comes up, I am curious to see a cross-generational study. I'd also be interested in seeing the result of taking notes with a less linear note taking tool, such as OneNote and its infinite canvas, compared to pure linear note taking. Now for most math classes, and other subjects that involve lots of diagrams, hand writing (digital or analog) is better! (Ignoring the people who are so good at LaTe…

My own experience in school lines up with what you described. There's something about having to teach 'manually?' that gives more energy to the lecture.

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

#25

Post by krrrh »

anyfoo wrote: post #10

In my case at least, I noticed that remembering things has a strong "visual" component. I have nothing close to a photographic memory (I wish), but for example in university, I often remembered facts and formulas by also remembering where on a page they were. I wouldn't quite "read it off" the page in my mind, but just the visualization of the page helped getting to the fact, in a "oh yeah, that's where that was writ…

In university I used to take notes with lots of arrows between concepts, while constantly switching between coloured pens, sometimes with an explicit system in mind and sometimes more intuitively. I noticed that this also greatly aided my spatial memory and recall.

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

#26

Post by anyfoo »

_rpd wrote: post #18
gentleman11 wrote: post #3

I disagree. Writing is helpful for thinking things through, but the writing itself doesn’t do anything. I used to take a lot of notes to remember things and it can just act as an excuse to not think hard. It’s the hard thought and periodic review that cements things

Yeah, the title should be "Handwriting helps particular kinds of people remember particular kinds of things"

There was a somewhat recent astonishing revelation that a lot of people are apparently unable to visualize things in their mind (which was interesting to both groups in different ways respectively), so I bet that if you don't visualize things in your mind, it won't help much with recollection.

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

#27

Post by briandoll »

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.

Absolutely. I did the same for a long time. I work with a bunch of companies every year, and having notes organized by client has been really helpful. That and a nice workflow to send notes/sketches/ideas from the notebook to a client via email is pretty nice. But definitely not for everybody.

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

#28

Post by WalterBright »

ddevault wrote: post #17
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.

Likewise, but I don't bother scanning it. I just throw it away and get another one off the pile. If it's important I'll transcribe it in the moment, but it's almost never that important.

When I was in college, I'd write code in spiral notebooks (didn't have screen editors then). It's amusing to me to see those today.

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

#29

Post by samuell »

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…

Thanks! Interesting observation about the layout!

Indeed, I also feel my most effective notes are the ones where I get a little creative with the layout, placing things out thoughtfully.

(Also, going back and filling in with a lot of balloons with thoughts afterwards etc, to make each page a little customized).

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

#30

Post by CodeIsTheEnd »

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…

I had a similar experience in high school with Spanish vocabulary tests. I could remember where the word was on the page, but not the translation.

At the time I perceived using the location as a crutch, so I made photocopies of the pages, cut them into the separate columns, then taped them together to make one very long and skinny list of words. I would then roll it up into a small scroll, little bigger than a tube of chapstick. Maybe the spatial location was a learning aid, and this actually made it harder to learn words, but it did make it much easier to discreetly study during other classes, so it was probably a net win overall.

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