Longtime readers know that Irreal is, um, skeptical of most studies put out by the psychology community. They are, largely, not reproducible and often just silly. One finding that is popular among psychologists that that note-taking is more effective when they are taken by hand than when they are taken with a keyboard.
They offer up the usual psychobabble in support of the idea that may or may not be correct but they also suggest that note takers behave differently when typing than when using longhand. When typing, we are more efficient so we tend to produce transcripts of whatever is being said. When taking notes by hand, we can’t keep up so we’re forced to think about what we’re hearing and record a précis of the subject matter. That means that we’re more apt to retain the handwritten notes.
Most of this is summarized in an article Hetty Roessingh. She makes the case for taking notes by hand and the joys of Moleskines and MontBlancs. If you’re one of those longtime readers, you know that I am all in on digital. I try to avoid paper as much as I can and certainly for note-taking. Still, it’s hard to convince myself that maybe, this once, the psychologists might not have a point. What to do? I certainly don’t want to hunt up my pads and pencils again.
Fortunately, you can have it both ways. If you’re a college student, this probably isn’t news but for those of us no longer enjoying the university life it may be welcome news. There are several ways of taking handwritten notes on, say, an iPad and even having them converted to text. This video by Ali Abdaal shows how he used an iPad, an Apple Pencil, and Notability to combine handwritten notes with his digital lifestyle. I loved this video when I first saw it and immediately got myself an Apple Pencil and a copy of Notability. I’ve been using them ever since and love them even though I don’t take notes that often anymore.
If you still have to take notes and think that maybe the psychologists are right about the superiority of handwritten notes, be sure to take a look at Abdaal’s video. It shows how you can have the best of both worlds. Actually, you can have better than either of the two alternatives.