Last year, I attempted to take handwritten notes while reading books rather than highlighting them or writing them digitally. In this short blog, I am sharing my pros and cons of handwritten notes.
Note : The above video is handwrittten notes of the book called “Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”
1. Remember More
There is no doubt that I remember more information compared to writing digitally. Some scientific evidence supports this, but to me, it felt natural.
Additionally, there is a certain magic to handwritten notes; whenever I see my handwriting, I am transported back to the time when I wrote it and start recollecting memories of what I felt at that time.
This is similar to how we re-listen to our favorite music/song from a few years back, triggering a nostalgic feeling whenever we hear it in the present.
2. Free Flowing Creativity
Since it's a blank canvas, it's easy to use annotations, circles, squares, and lines to connect dots. Sometimes I draw random shapes to make sense of what I am writing.
This is hard to do digitally because first, we need to learn the tool, and I spent an unnecessary amount of time on formatting and fixing spelling, finding the right diagram, and choosing colors.
3. No Colors
Colors make things visually appealing. For handwritten notes, this is missing. It looks dull, and there's a lot of messiness when starting to write anywhere on the page. Digital tools excel at this, and this is something I miss in handwritten notes.
4. Non-Searchable
The biggest advantage of digital text is that it’s easily searchable. Even one keyword is enough to scan all your notes, which is very time-consuming in handwritten notes.
Although app like Google Lens and Apple Note Document Scanner make this a lot easier to move these notes digitally, and then we can search for words in handwritten notes.
However, if you have a lot of diagrams in the notes, these apps won’t help much. I hope AI will solve this problem soon!!
Conclusion
I would prefer handwritten notes first because it’s easy and fast to get started with free-flowing creativity. However, if I want more organized and beautiful notes to share with the world, then I would go digitally.
There is a third option to balance both: take handwritten notes first and convert them digitally as needed using available tools like Google Lens or Apple Note Scan Documents.
That’s It, Folks
If you enjoyed this short blog, do let me know so I can share more of these notes. If you have any queries or think there's a better way to do this, please let me know in the comments. This will help me learn with all of you.
Also, would you be able to do me a quick favour and share my latest blog post with your friends and colleagues? I'd really appreciate it and I think it could be valuable to them.
In a Digital World, the Charm of Handwritten Notes