Irreal

My post on Digital Vs. Analog Notes got some excellent comments as well as a followup post from JTR on his site. JTR mostly agrees with what I wrote but I did get some pushback in the comments on Irreal.

J Tevq has a long and thoughtful comment on why he sometimes prefers handwritten notes to digital. He’s a graduate student in Mathematics so this makes sense. I’ve always found that I can’t do any serious Mathematics on a computer. I need to scribble around on a pad to prove whatever it is before I turn to the computer to write it up.

He also, like many people, likes to read papers on paper. Some folks say that they simply can’t read material like that on a computer.

There are, he says, lots of places where handwritten notes are better. I was like that for a long time but managed to wean myself away from pencil and paper on my journey to a digital life.

MarkB likes to combine the two methods by (essentially) taking handwritten notes and digitizing them later. Actually, of course, this is all done on an iPad with an App that accepts handwritten notes and digitizes them on the fly.

My favorite App for that is Notability. Ali Abdaal has a great video on how he used it to take notes as a medical student. Abdaal also explains the (scientific) reasons for preferring handwritten notes for class and perhaps for other uses as well. Take a look at the video. It changed how I thought about note taking even though I am no longer in a classroom.

Since I do all my writing in Org mode, having notes, papers, and other materials in digital form means it’s easy to import or link to them as I’m writing. For formal journals you still have to make old styles references but, really, hypertext references are so much better. Of course, others feel differently. As always, the best method is the one that works for you.

Anyway, if you’re interested in the subject, do take a look at the comments and JTR’s post. They’re thoughtful and informative.

Over at The Art Of Not Asking Why, JTR has a couple of posts that explore his struggle with deciding between digital and analog note taking. None of you will be surprised where I come down on the issue—I’m all in on living a digital life and eschew using pen and paper as much as I can—but it’s informative to read about JTR’s thought process about how he decides which method to use.

To be honest, I don’t understand his ambivalence about the matter. He lays out the case for both and shows that, except for a vague feeling of attraction to writing with pen and paper, the digital method is more efficient and satisfying. The digital product is so much more useful and flexible that it seems there should be no question as to which to use.

One thing he says that really resonated with me is that if he writes a lot with a pen, his hand cramps. That definitely happens to me too. Related to that is speed.

When I was still young and was hunt and pecking on an actual typewriter, an adult told me that it was really hard to type faster than you can write by hand. That seems laughable to me now. I can type much faster than I can write. A lot of that is probably because my handwriting is so bad that I print everything but it’s still a fact.

I, too, like the idea of sitting down with a beautiful paper journal and good pen but the results aren’t that useful. I can’t back them up. I can’t carry them on my iPhone. I can’t easily link them to and from other notes.

I write virtually everything in Org mode. The main exception is the memo book that resides on my iPhone and I simply import those notes directly into an Org mode table so that they, too, end up living in Org. All of this is automatically backed up, searchable, portable to my iPhone, and easy to link to.

If you really need the feel of pen on paper, take up calligraphy. It will satisfy your need for handwriting without sacrificing the usefulness of your notes.