When to Ditch the Keyboard and Start Hand-writing

Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through your fingertips

I have a question for you: Why did we even bother to learn handwriting and cursive if we rarely use it after elementary school?

Today, high schools are filled with laptops and gadgets. Handwritten essays are only assigned for in-class exams. It’s the teacher’s way of ensuring nobody cheats. It was also their burden to decipher the student’s handwriting. But to them, it was worth the risk of cheating.

No wonder people hate handwriting. The only time you have to do it is under the sweaty brow of a suspicious professor. And more, it takes you ages to complete. The way in which our teachers and professors employ hand-writing today is ridiculous. And more, it’s wrong.

Handwriting is obsolete in certain circumstances and helpful in others.

When not to hand-write:

• When you’re writing two paragraphs or more.
• When you’re writing a book

When to hand-write:

• Reminders and quotes
• To-do lists
• Mapping out ideas, strategies or ventures
• Reaching very important people

There’s just something special about writing by hand. It gives one that sense of speed. It gives freedom to draw in whatever pattern you want; to rapidly link together circles and ideas with arrows. It allows you to focus–as you’re completely immersed in the idea. There’s no email alert popping up in the background. Hand-writing helps the mind focus.

I. Reminders and quotes

When I was nineteen, I took up a habit of writing down bite-sized thoughts. I wrote quotes, lessons and ideas on note cards. As I read various books, I wrote down vocabulary that I didn’t understand. Every single day I reviewed these note cards. They served as reminders. Reviewing them was a great way to start the day. There was no distractions. Though my time invested in writing has crowded out this habit, I plan on re-awakening it soon. It’s a daily foundation exercise.

Repetition is the mother of skill.

There were actually quite a few notable figures that employ this technique–the technique of jotting down quick thoughts. Many of them recommend having something handy next to your nightstand:

I keep little notepads all over the place to write down ideas as soon as they strike, but the ones that fill up the quickest are always the ones at my nightstand. ~Emily Logan Decens

These little flashes of quotes, lessons or inspirations are perfect for hand-writing.

How to get in the habit of writing down quick thoughts:

1. Invest in a pen. The money spent may help you feel obligated to use it. Here’s a site with interesting pens.
2. Buy some note cards (3×5) and put them in your back pocket
3. When you’ve written down thoughts or lessons, put them in a note card case (you can pick one up at Office Max or Staples)
4. I separate them into three categories: a) vocabulary, b) life lessons, c) business strategy
5. Review them first thing in the morning as part of the daily foundation

II. To-do lists

There’s no better feeling than scratching off an item from your to-do list. OK, maybe there is. But scratching out completed items feels sweet. I’ve tried different to-do lists; online, offline, through the phone. You name it, I’ve tried it. There’s innovative to-do list strategies out there like Todoodlist. This will give you an interesting take on to-do lists; however, what I’ve found to be the most important is keeping to-do lists simple.

A to-do list is a list of things to do. Write it down and do it, don’t over-think it otherwise you’ll get nothing done.

One of the secrets of getting more done is to make a TO DO List every day, keep it visible, and use it as a guide to action as you go through the day. — Jean de La Fontaine

What is crucial; however, is having your to-do list offline. To those that object, I feel your pain. I know it sucks to ditch your Remember The Milk, Google To-Do’s, or Jott. I’ve been through it. Those services are fine for building repositories of things you’d like to get done in the future, but for everyday actions, get an offline list. Why? Because your to-do list must be flexible and open. You need to circle items, draw connected arrows and scratch things out on the fly.

III. Mapping out ideas, strategies or ventures

Many of the biggest companies have massive deals written out on paper; Facebook, Google, Sun Microsystems; you name it, there’s likely a business plan or deal written on a napkin that drives services or products you use everyday.

Two people gather, bounce ideas around, counter objections, and then draw out terms on a napkin. You’ll rarely, if ever, see two people whipping out their iPhone and drawing through an app. Why? Because a pen and a napkin gets the job done. Again, don’t focus on capabilities, focus on essentials.

For this reason, I highly recommend companies to employ whiteboards within their teams. I’ve lived through a variety of startups, some suceeded, some failed. What was critical in the successful ones was the ability to communicate ideas. I’ve led various software movements and productivity systems (project management software, CRM’s, online chats, etc.); none of them came close to the very basic whiteboard. This was hard for me to swallow at first, because I wanted to bring a nifty piece of software to the table. Software that helped our team get more productive. But each tool I brought failed–they all had one thing in common: the whiteboard does the job just as well, if not better.

If you require data and notes from your whiteboard, programmer Stephen Furlani points out that there’s tools that give you this ability: mimio.

Stephen also notes that hand-writing within programming isn’t dead. In fact, it isn’t even close. With all of the electronic ways to map out ideas and use cases through software, nothing comes close to mapping out ideas by hand. Stephen writes, “I write it out in pseudocode on a notebook in front of me while I am examining the code, make the changes by hand, and then re-code the section on the computer. It aids greatly in understanding what the original code does, since most of it is usually undocumented, and how the fix interacts with the original code.”

Even if you’re a programmer, hand-writing still prevails.

IV. Reaching VIP’s

In an age of emoticons and LOL’s, you’ll stun people when you communicate via hand-written notes. It’ll take the reader back to their childhood. Hand-written notes are more intimate. The actual living ink is a reflection of time and work composing the letter. When reading an e-mail, one processes electronic text. What do we all complain about? Reading too much electronic text. “I’m so busy, I get xx emails per day. It’s crazy.” I’ve never met a person that’s said, “In my off-time I really enjoy sipping cappuccino’s and reading emails.” People hate email. Don’t add fuel to the fire. And more, if you do email someone, it’s likely it’ll sit next to the typical “Free Viagra” spam email.

I’ve never met a person that’s said, “In my off-time I really enjoy sipping cappuccino’s and reading emails.” People hate email. Don’t add fuel to the fire.

Bottom line: It’s a wise marketing tactic to reach people through hand-written notes. In our age of distraction, the most crowded channels are the newest ones: texting, emails and cell phones. The emptiest channels are the most intimate: hand-written notes.

Next action: I suggest adopting at least one of the four ways to use hand-writing above. Take a mental note of your thoughts and the results, and let me know your experiences in the comments below.

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