With the advent of the 2018 iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil, taking notes on my iPad has never been easier, nor more paper-like. I am a proud member of the Paperless Movement and the work of Dr. Tom Solid. His research on the various apps and accessories for paperless note-taking is absolutely superb and I urge you to check it out.
Suffice it to say, I am hooked.
This, coming from a guy who for 45 years has carried a paper planner around with him every waking hour. In the 1980s, I graduated to using the then-new Franklin Quest® line of daily planners for calendaring and note-taking. When I was living overseas and couldn’t get ahold of Franklin (now, Franklin Covey™) supplies, I would invest in nice leather bound journal books. They made and continue to make nice looking books in my library.
And therein lies the problem: For me, the act of “looking back” conveys a neat and tidy sense of history, my own personal history. I can (and regularly do) look back at “this date in history” as a means of reminding myself how far I have come (and perhaps still have to go). This is not so easy with an iPad, not only because it wasn’t around 45 years ago, but also because of storage limitations, battery life, etc. More on that in a moment.
Regardless of whether you write onto good old-fashioned paper, or into an iPad, research suggests that that hand-to-brain connection is by design the best way to remember the important things in life. While each person has her own preferred method for writing notes and to-do lists, your brain holds onto information better after you’ve written it down. That’s a pretty good incentive for going old-school with a paper journal or day planner, or new-school with an Apple iPad and a Pencil™.
Your Brain Loves Pen and Paper
Turns out that when you type on a keyboard, you use your fine motor skills in a much more limited way than when you write by hand. Using a pen and paper conveys a far deeper sensory experience than touching a keyboard. As you’re crafting each handwritten letter, more dexterity is required to write with a pen than is required by a keyboard.
And that dexterity actually affects different circuits in your brain! (see Note 1) Handwriting’s combination of motor skills, the connection of fingers to fine print, that certain “touch sensation,” along with the visual perception required to anticipate the next letter, the next space, the end of the line, and so forth, actually reinforces the natural learning process.
Simply put, your memory of handwritten words is tied to the movements required to make each letter. This might be what helps the memory of what we’ve written hang around in our brains a bit longer. Conversely, the act of keyboarding activates fewer areas of the brain. The calculus involved means that the faster we type, the faster we forget. Isn’t that odd? And isn’t it counter-intuitive?
Yes on both counts.
Think for a moment about how humans first evolved the ability to read and write. The process was highly connected to physical touch as, for thousands of years, handwriting involved chiseling symbols into rock or pressing them into clay. Our minds and bodies are primed for this kind of physical interaction with the world. Typing on a keyboard, sadly, is a far cry from our prehistoric beginnings and the process of creating the shape of each individual letter by hand.
When you write by hand, you actually give our so-called encoding processes a “leg-up” (see Note 2). Encoding is all about sending information to your brain’s hippocampus, at which point a decision is made to either store information in long-term memory, or to let it go. If you write something by hand, all that complex sensory information increases the chances the knowledge will be stored for later. It almost as if — because it simply took so long to write — that the brain defaults to keeping it around.
That said, writing everything down onto paper (or, as we shall see, into Notability™ on your iPad) would get exhausting. Most of us, after all, are smart enough to remember a large number of things written down or not.
“Clutter is as Clutter does” (to paraphrase Forrest Gump), so I try to strike a balance between writing things down versus relying on my natural smarts. Too many lists, too many notes, and we incite a kind of existential anxiety, right? So, and to that end, I limit myself to the following:
- First of all, and like a lot of you, I keep what I call a TooDue™ List. Lately, I have begun (with Dr. Solid’s help) keeping my TooDues on my iPad using the app, Notability. I use my Apple Pencil and enter my TooDues into a note using “check boxes” supplied by the app. I can go back and check them off when done. Talk about self-satisfying effort! Of course, you can use paper for this, but I fear losing that particular piece of paper. On the iPad it would be rare event to lose it, given how my notes there are backed up to the cloud. Alternatively, you can use Apple’s Notes app, which has the same check-box functionality, but why use more than one app? Clutter is as Clutter does.
- Next, I have a list of short-, near-, and long-term goals, none of which are particularly weighty but they’re important to me nonetheless. I think of them as “Life TooDues.” Same checkbox approach, but in this instance I prioritize them. Candidly, having a written list of things I want to accomplish makes them feel more real, and prioritizes them in my cranial cavity.
- For work, within Notability, I have various “subjects” divided by category. For example, and because I am a life coach and executive mentor, I keep client notes in separate subjects and onto different individual notes by date and time of a session. Because I am also a student, so to speak, I keep class notes on yet other note pages within subjects. If I listen to a podcast or watch a show to learn something, I take notes, especially if I’m trying to learn something new. Even just writing down a few essential words and ideas can seriously improve your understanding. And, it’s a great way to ensure the information sticks.
- A long time ago, I created a Letting Go Journal and keep it inside of Notability. This is my advice for all my clients and it puts them one step closer to a good night’s sleep. (see Note 3). The process is simple: decide what might keep you up and night and write it down. I guarantee it will be there in the morning. Better yet, 60% of the time I forgot why I was worrying about it. Therefore, stop worrying, write it into this journal, and let-it-go.
- And, finally, like many people, I keep a diary, a journal of my thoughts. Again, they go into my iPad, but occasionally they will go into a Franklin Covey planner book too. It is the story of my life and looking back at these entries a year from now, or ten years from now, reminds me of how far I’ve come (and perhaps how little time I have left).
A Word of Caution
When you type your notes, it’s easy to include more information than you need. Because handwriting takes longer, it forces you to think critically about what’s really worth jotting down.
This process of critical thinking can boost your memory even further. Learn to write down only what you need and then get back to the act of listening.
For My College Students
College students who take notes by hand remember the information far, far better than those who don’t. That’s because, as was mentioned above, writing by hand is always slower than typing (see Note 4). Students who hand-write notes can’t write nearly as fast as a lecturer speaks, so they have to distill the information and make wise choices about what to write. This gives them a better working knowledge of the subject—even if they never look at their notes again. Sadly, those who type their notes might be engaging in something akin to a transcription process, rather than processing the information into their own words.
Check Your Notes
When you hand-write important notes, you often find you remember them without ever reading them again. However, another benefit of this tactic is that the information is always right there when you need it. And reading handwritten text involves more parts of your brain than reading typed text. So, rereading your notes can also boost your memory. Handwriting a few of your notes is so fast and easy, you’ve nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Paper or iPad?
Research is surely on-going, but at this point I see no difference between writing with a pencil or pen on good old paper versus writing into an iPad app using an Apple Pencil (or the Logitech Crayon®, which by the way, is a terrific alternative). The sensory faculties in use are the same and the results are just as long-lasting in terms of retention. And, so, to that end I have broken my rule of no technology in the classroom and now permit my students to use an iPad with Apple Pencil (or whatever the Android equivalent may be).
My iPad Pro (2018) model has remarkably long battery life, is linked to my iCloud account, and has yet to fail me. Handwriting on the iPad is remarkably similar to writing writing on paper (especially if you have the Paperlike screen protector) (see Note 5). It’s encrypted, so it’s safe, and by virtue of password protection is virtually useless to anyone else. I have gotten over what was the essential risk of using technology in this fashion. Therefore …
Take note of this advice: Take handwritten notes. You’re life will be much improved!
Note 1:
Note 2:
Note 3:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sleep-helps-learning-memory-201202154265
Note 4:
Note 5:
For years and because of my time at Microsoft, I was committed to using their Surface Pro line of tablets. They market what they call the Surface Pen with the tablet and it is ok, but not great. There is an annoying lag between when you set the pen to the screen and begin to write. Not good. The iPad Pro, on the other hand, has remarkably fast interaction between pencil and screen. I am not sure about other models of iPads, inasmuch as they use a different processor. Go with the Pro.
