Take notes by hand? I always thought it was a good thing.

pen and paper

This morning I received email confirmation that my desire to have hundreds of sheets of paper floating around is a good one. Okay, that’s a stretch. But my notebooks (that are bound) with start and end dates clearly printed on the front [for work] and my bound notebooks for college courses I’ve taken… those stand me in good stead.

Here’s the article if you’d like to read up on it yourself: This is why you should take notes by hand instead of with a laptop – on Lifehack.org.

Best line (for those who don’t want to click through or read it yourselves): “…according to the new study published by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer (from  Princeton University and  University of California respectively)  students who take notes on paper learn significantly more  compared to their laptop-addicted peers.” – Elena Prokopets
Why?

The long and short of it is:

  • the time you use writing helps you digest the information shared
  • just because you can type all that in doesn’t mean you should – synthesize/shorten/just capture the most important items (hint-you’re learning)
  • laptops are incredibly distracting