Why you should still put pen to paper

There’s always at least one person sat on the train with a laptop open. Most meetings are people sat around one desk, each with their own laptop. We all watch TV on our laptops. It’s safe to say we are laptop mad – but is this savvy bit of tech as useful as the old-fashioned method of writing by hand? Here’s why I think we should all ditch the screens for a while.

Focuses your mind

Writing by hand makes you slow down, particularly in comparison to your typing speed (unless you have to use the ‘hunt and peck’ method). Although slowing down doesn’t seem like a benefit, it actually means that you’re more likely to focus on what’s important.

Writing by hand requires your hands to move in a different way than when you’re typing and this difference in motion increases activity in the brain’s motor cortex. Basically, that means that the effect you get from writing by hand is similar to meditation, which helps with your well-being. Bonus.

Increases productivity

Speaking of focus, there’s less chance of distraction when you write by hand. Having access to the Internet is pretty much essential for modern life but it can also serve as a gateway to 3 hours of searching for “funny dog videos” instead of getting stuff done. When it’s just you, your pen and your notebook, there is no escape.

Improves memory

Studies have been carried out amongst students to determine whether hand writing or typing is more helpful for their learning. It turns out that writing by hand helps to retain all the information you need because you have to process the information being given to you and choose what’s worthy of being penned. This helps to improve your overall understanding and keep all the important stuff in your memory long-term. Your friends may be thankful of this on their birthdays.

You’ll be more creative

You can scribble all over the page. This might not sound very useful but it is. Handwriting allows you to move around information on a page without getting trigger happy with the delete button. If you’ve made connections as you’ve been writing, you can draw arrows between points. You can put little notes in the margin, use different colours and draw boxes around paragraphs to separate thoughts. Writing by hands allows you to be more creative by using words in a visual way.

If this hasn’t convinced you to dig out your favourite gel pens, I don’t know what will.