4 ms·

Taking note is still faster in with a pen and paper. Thinking as well. And I'm on the very upper scale of computer skills. Lately I even removed some part of m

Taking note is still faster in with a pen and paper. Thinking as well. And I'm on the very upper scale of computer skills. Lately I even removed some part of my project management tooling to replace it with paper. Very short term actionable data is more productive on paper for me.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
You must be a very slow typist :). I can write on a keyboard much faster than on paper, and I'll bet I can outpace any regular person in this way. One could try and compete by employing some stenography shenanigans, but at that point I'll just enable abbrev mode in my Emacs and beat them again. Where typing fails me, though, is anything other than writing regular, linear text. The moment I expect needing to write a lot of math formulas, or drawing any kind of diagram, I get my paper and pens. Writing by hand is amazingly flexible.
- cooper12 9y ago
  > Writing by hand is amazingly flexible Once, as an exercise I attempted to transcribe my Statistics notes into LaTeX. I was perfectly capable of inserting the proper math notation, but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Things like alternating writing sizes (doable in digital, but usually ends up looking horrible), varying levels of indentation and line height, margin notes, asides, ease of diagrams (again, doable digitally, but time-consuming), notation (crossing things out, circling, arrows, etc), and so many other things. Typesetting for print or digital requires a complete change of layout and even approaches to presentation. You don't realize how much freedom the blank paper gives you until you try translating it to the digital document.
  - setr 9y ago
    Typing on a computer is much easier than by hand Formatting otoh...
  - trentmb 9y ago
    > but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Until you need to change them. It's significantly easier to change formatting on a typed document than handwritten.
    - Pulcinella 9y ago
      Yes but I feel that changes when you have something like a diagram. For example, drawing Organic Chemistry mechanisms. Yes you can do them on the computer with ChemDraw and if you need to change something you can, but in practice it feels so slow it's just quicker to cross out your mistake on paper and try again.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Too bad digital notes don't have coffee rings and chocolate stains on them.
    - JoshTriplett 9y ago
      http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349 http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349
- sametmax 9y ago
  You must have a very limited way of expressing your self :) I can express with a pen using symbols, drawing, spacing, diagrams, flow... Too many people confuse taking notes with transcription, or forget to take in consideration the cost of context switching.
  - arkitaip 9y ago
    I've tried many UI sketching/prototyping apps over the years and keep coming back to pen and paper. It's not just the speed but the ephemeral nature of paper that invites to exploration and mistakes. Using Balsamiq or any other app seems much heavier in some way...
    - Pulcinella 9y ago
      To me handwriting and sketching feels more responsive. Yes with a software tool you might be able to construct a perfect triangle in a few clicks and then it instantly appears, but my brain interprets all those clicks as lag. The goal is to use my hands to make something appear. All those clicks are moving my hands but nothing is appearing! When I sketch it, the instant my hand moves the pen a line appears. It takes longer to construct the whole triangle, but the process itself is zero latency. I admit it is not rational but it's just how I feel.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Ouch :). I suppose I asked for it, and yeah, you're right. I mentioned doing symbols, drawings and diagrams on paper, but 90% of the time my notes are just plaintext stream of thoughts or outlines.
  - hrktb 9y ago
    I think that’s covered by the "Where typing fails me, though, is anything other than writing regular, linear text" part. Also we’re not really talking about note taking, more by which mean you put ideas on a written support. I am under the impression that people who spent the majority of their formative years on pen and paper will in mostly be more comfortable thinking on pen and paper, but increasingly I feel that the lack of practice in hand writing will put a lot more friction in that process, tiping the balance in a different way. Also there’s a flurry of study floating around about university students who can’t think while typing (and It’s usually about note taking to get back to your point), but it feels counter to my own experience, and I wonder if it’s not an effect of the studies done on students who just came out of a decade of pen and paper learning. Just like how children can have a hard time reading and understanding the meaning at the same time, or how their first years of writing is really taking an input and transforming it to an output.
- jonnycomputer 9y ago
  let's see you write out complex equations with equal facility.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I explicitly mentioned in my comment that this is where I switch to paper.
    - jonnycomputer 9y ago
      sorry missed that.
davidmr 9y ago
As others mentioned, that's certainly not my experience, but the tactile nature of taking noted by hand still helps me remember better. I've been half-heartedly considering learning shorthand. I still like taking notes by hand, but I often realllllly wish I had a mostly verbatim record of some meetings.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > but the tactile nature of taking noted by hand still helps me remember better As a data point, I can confirm that too - for me it also seems that writing something by hand is significantly more helpful to learning/remembering it than typing. Because of that, during my university years, while I often took lecture notes on the computer, I would rewrite key points on paper several time, to make them stick in my head.
hrktb 9y ago
In agreement with TeMPOraL, I think there is at least two different kind of ‘note taking’ or even problems to think about. For coding problems or algorithms for instance, I honestly find it way easier and faster to type, even pseudo code or sequence diagrams (basically ascii art at that point). It specially helps to be able to move around blocks or ident/deindent, bold or format whole portions. For more architectural or organizational problems, hand writing on a blank canvas is more efficient. Not faster in my case, but the freedom is unmatched. Funnily enough, for math with equations and lot of symbols, I’m not proficient enough to have a free flow of ideas that I jolt down on paper mindlessly. There’s so much friction from the start that the burden of formating in a software for instance is negligeable compared to the struggle I’ll have to come to the right exceptions.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

You must be a very slow typist :). I can write on a keyboard much faster than on paper, and I'll bet I can outpace any regular person in this way. One could try and compete by employing some stenography shenanigans, but at that point I'll just enable abbrev mode in my Emacs and beat them again. Where typing fails me, though, is anything other than writing regular, linear text. The moment I expect needing to write a lot of math formulas, or drawing any kind of diagram, I get my paper and pens. Writing by hand is amazingly flexible.

cooper12 9y ago
> Writing by hand is amazingly flexible Once, as an exercise I attempted to transcribe my Statistics notes into LaTeX. I was perfectly capable of inserting the proper math notation, but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Things like alternating writing sizes (doable in digital, but usually ends up looking horrible), varying levels of indentation and line height, margin notes, asides, ease of diagrams (again, doable digitally, but time-consuming), notation (crossing things out, circling, arrows, etc), and so many other things. Typesetting for print or digital requires a complete change of layout and even approaches to presentation. You don't realize how much freedom the blank paper gives you until you try translating it to the digital document.
- setr 9y ago
  Typing on a computer is much easier than by hand Formatting otoh...
- trentmb 9y ago
  > but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Until you need to change them. It's significantly easier to change formatting on a typed document than handwritten.
  - Pulcinella 9y ago
    Yes but I feel that changes when you have something like a diagram. For example, drawing Organic Chemistry mechanisms. Yes you can do them on the computer with ChemDraw and if you need to change something you can, but in practice it feels so slow it's just quicker to cross out your mistake on paper and try again.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  Too bad digital notes don't have coffee rings and chocolate stains on them.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349 http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349
sametmax 9y ago
You must have a very limited way of expressing your self :) I can express with a pen using symbols, drawing, spacing, diagrams, flow... Too many people confuse taking notes with transcription, or forget to take in consideration the cost of context switching.
- arkitaip 9y ago
  I've tried many UI sketching/prototyping apps over the years and keep coming back to pen and paper. It's not just the speed but the ephemeral nature of paper that invites to exploration and mistakes. Using Balsamiq or any other app seems much heavier in some way...
  - Pulcinella 9y ago
    To me handwriting and sketching feels more responsive. Yes with a software tool you might be able to construct a perfect triangle in a few clicks and then it instantly appears, but my brain interprets all those clicks as lag. The goal is to use my hands to make something appear. All those clicks are moving my hands but nothing is appearing! When I sketch it, the instant my hand moves the pen a line appears. It takes longer to construct the whole triangle, but the process itself is zero latency. I admit it is not rational but it's just how I feel.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Ouch :). I suppose I asked for it, and yeah, you're right. I mentioned doing symbols, drawings and diagrams on paper, but 90% of the time my notes are just plaintext stream of thoughts or outlines.
- hrktb 9y ago
  I think that’s covered by the "Where typing fails me, though, is anything other than writing regular, linear text" part. Also we’re not really talking about note taking, more by which mean you put ideas on a written support. I am under the impression that people who spent the majority of their formative years on pen and paper will in mostly be more comfortable thinking on pen and paper, but increasingly I feel that the lack of practice in hand writing will put a lot more friction in that process, tiping the balance in a different way. Also there’s a flurry of study floating around about university students who can’t think while typing (and It’s usually about note taking to get back to your point), but it feels counter to my own experience, and I wonder if it’s not an effect of the studies done on students who just came out of a decade of pen and paper learning. Just like how children can have a hard time reading and understanding the meaning at the same time, or how their first years of writing is really taking an input and transforming it to an output.
jonnycomputer 9y ago
let's see you write out complex equations with equal facility.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I explicitly mentioned in my comment that this is where I switch to paper.
  - jonnycomputer 9y ago
    sorry missed that.

davidmr 9y ago

As others mentioned, that's certainly not my experience, but the tactile nature of taking noted by hand still helps me remember better. I've been half-heartedly considering learning shorthand. I still like taking notes by hand, but I often realllllly wish I had a mostly verbatim record of some meetings.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> but the tactile nature of taking noted by hand still helps me remember better As a data point, I can confirm that too - for me it also seems that writing something by hand is significantly more helpful to learning/remembering it than typing. Because of that, during my university years, while I often took lecture notes on the computer, I would rewrite key points on paper several time, to make them stick in my head.

hrktb 9y ago

In agreement with TeMPOraL, I think there is at least two different kind of ‘note taking’ or even problems to think about. For coding problems or algorithms for instance, I honestly find it way easier and faster to type, even pseudo code or sequence diagrams (basically ascii art at that point). It specially helps to be able to move around blocks or ident/deindent, bold or format whole portions. For more architectural or organizational problems, hand writing on a blank canvas is more efficient. Not faster in my case, but the freedom is unmatched. Funnily enough, for math with equations and lot of symbols, I’m not proficient enough to have a free flow of ideas that I jolt down on paper mindlessly. There’s so much friction from the start that the burden of formating in a software for instance is negligeable compared to the struggle I’ll have to come to the right exceptions.