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Writing by hand is good for your brain

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#701

Post by beej71 »

dv35z wrote: post #681
Multicomp wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done that for a time, then fell off for the past few years. Today, I'm getting out my journal right after I hit 'send' and I'm doing this. To whoever is reading this and may be in a similar situation, let's start the streak up again today! EDIT: I did it and am glad I overcame the inertia - it was a little over a whole year since I pulled out the journal, so if whoever out there is still on the fence, give it a…

Do you keep a daily journal normally - and for the daily pages, do you have a separate notebook for them, or a folder full of pages, or what? Thanks for inspiring us!

Not the GP, but my daily journal goes in a proper journal book (though I find the cheapest possible one that has semi-rigid covers) and my freewrites go in cheap wide-ruled composition books.

The only rationale I have for that is the journal form factor holds more words and is easier to pack on trips, when I tend to leave my freewrites behind.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#703

Post by _giorgio_ »

qiller wrote: post #73

Always found that writing stuff down helps me to remember things better, whether studying something, prepping for an exam, or in general. Didn't even matter if I didn't look at those notes again, it just got "stored" better. Didn't know he is a lefty too! Fountain pens + lefty is a tough combo; we had to use fountain pens in the 1st grade and my wrist was always stained on the side. Agree with the rollerball angle, P…

I am left handed, and my wrist is not stained.

There are a lot of fountain pen inks that dry faster, like the Iroshizuku line. And some specifically built to be water resistant etc. It is a lot different from years ago.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#704

Post by Chilko »

RRWagner wrote: post #445
nahkoots wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incredibly cool actually, what was the book? Could you share anything he wrote which you found especially interesting?

The book is "Making Good in Business" by Roger W. Babson. Babson gifted the book to Edison in 1921. Here is a link to a scan of another copy of the book in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-DAU-349/mode/2up Here is my github repo with scans of the marginalia from Edison: https://github.com/RRWagner/Making-Good-in-Business-Babson-E...

These were interesting:

"History proves that religion is a curse and is the master scheme for Exploitation of man" - p47

"God helps nobody. 20 million perished in the late war — for no fault of theirs Why did God permit this" - p48

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#705

Post by jakevoytko »

crazygringo wrote: post #700
jakevoytko wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kept me listening. When I was on minute 70 of a boring lecture I started daydreaming. If I was writing even minimal notes, I'd need to briefly consider each idea and decide whether it was worth recording.

But if you're taking notes by typing then you have to be listening as well. You can't daydream and transcribe at the same time. At least I sure can't.

I can take notes as fast as people can talk, but I'm much slower at writing so I needed to synthesize it into a condensed idea. It doesn't feel the same, to me at least.

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#706

Post by giardini »

crazygringo wrote: post #476
nxc18 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it. When I hand write, I am generally forced to either slow down and repeat what I am listening/watching (if an option), or actually think about what is being said, and choose the important parts to write down, or rephrase it in a more efficient-to-write way. I am taking a course righ…

When I hand write taking notes, I am indeed forced to slow down, and it's maddening. I'm busy trying to figure out how to condense the ideas into something I can quickly write, and in the meantime the lecturer is continuing and I've missed something important they've just said. I genuinely do not understand how people find it helps them to handwrite notes in a lecture. If I type on my laptop, I can do that "mindlessl…

Maybe learn shorthand?

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#707

Post by nextlevelwizard »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #664
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are just copy pasting off of the board then probably. Hard to say since I have not had experience with both methods in this context. I still think writing by hand makes stuff stick better especially if you are one of those 500 wpm typists where very little thought goes into typing and it is more like a reflex

I definitely got more out of paying full attention to lectures in university compared to wasting effort on hand writing notes. And properly typeset lecture notes written by somebody else are much better for studying than the illegible handwritten notes I produce.

It is almost like people learn in different ways…

Re: Writing by hand is good for your brain

#708

Post by rebirth01 »

dhosek wrote: post #519

On the gadget front, I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad. This combined with the Apple Pencil made a huge difference in the usability of my iPad for writing/drawing. I still prefer to write on paper, but it’s really great for things like my writing group where we generally meet over zoom & I can give the author a marked up manuscript (with multicolor notes). I’m also opposed to getting too preci…

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