Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
The Best of Both Worlds: How to Integrate Paper and Digital Notes (1st of 3 seminars)
Summary
Unlock the cognitive benefits of handwriting without losing the convenience of digital organization. Research consistently demonstrates the cognitive value of writing notes by hand. However, there are important benefits to keeping notes digitally. In this seminar by Duly Noted author Jorge Arango, you’ll learn workflows for integrating handwritten notes into your digital notes. Watch Part 2 Watch Part 3
Key Insights
-
•
Note-taking serves different distinct use cases such as prosthetic memory, creative thinking, reading annotation, and lecture capturing, each requiring different approaches.
-
•
The extended mind hypothesis shows notes and external tools extend cognitive capacity beyond the brain itself.
-
•
Handwritten notes facilitate deeper flow states and better initial comprehension due to slower writing reducing verbatim capture.
-
•
Paper notes are resilient, immediate, and long-lasting physically but hard to organize, search, and copy at scale.
-
•
Digital notes offer superior searchability, organization via tags and links, multimodality, and easy backups, but require more setup and learning.
-
•
Combining handwritten and digital notes leverages the immediacy and flow benefits of paper with digital organization and findability.
-
•
Mobile scanning apps like Scanner Pro greatly speed up digitizing handwritten notes with OCR and cloud integration.
-
•
Using a central digital repository (Obsidian) to store and link all notes, including PDFs of handwritten ones, creates a powerful, emergent graph of knowledge.
-
•
Tagging should focus on utility and minimalism, like tagging by projects rather than exhaustively describing topics.
-
•
Beware of over-optimizing note-taking systems; the goal is to enhance effective thinking and work, not just perfect note management.
Notable Quotes
"Note-taking is really important; it's underappreciated but critically important, like interviewing users for a researcher."
"Notes are a way to enhance our thinking, serving different purposes from memory aids to generative creative work."
"We think with things; our brain is part of us but we extend our cognition into our environments and tools."
"Handwritten notes have no boot up time, and that immediacy helps enter deeper flow states."
"People who took notes by hand tend to have better recall than those typing notes because they process information differently."
"Digital notes can be linked to each other to create a graph of ideas that is impossible with linear paper notebooks."
"Scanner Pro automatically corrects perspective and applies filters, making scanning with a phone fast and high quality."
"I resist premature optimization of tagging and structure; I want to be 80% there rather than perfect and distracted."
"The goal is not to take notes; the goal is to think effectively, as Andy Matus says."
"Avoid getting sidetracked by tools and processes so you can focus on the actual work those notes help enable."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"How do we dance at a distance? That is the real tricky part of remote teamwork."
Smitha Papolu Nova Wehman-Brown Melissa Schmidt Adam MenterTheme 3 Discussion
January 8, 2024
"Make a business case for yourself by bragging about your capabilities and making them applicable."
Deanna Washington Bria Alexander Jon Fukuda Saara Kamppari-Miller Farid SabitovConnecting the Ops: Plenary Panel and Closing Circle
September 9, 2022
"Our handoff process turns absolute layout into a flex layout structure, so you get responsiveness out of the box without copying screens for each size."
George Abraham Stefan IvanovDesign Systems To-Go: Introducing a Starter Design System, and Indigo.Design Overview (Part 1)
September 30, 2021
"People with disabilities are very appreciative and willing to help us learn because they understand we may not understand their challenges."
Elana Chapman Li Wen Huang Divyen Sanganee Annabel WeinerGetting started with accessibility research
February 20, 2025
"Every job is a climate job. Wherever we are, the climate needs us to address it in our role."
Sara ConklinA UXer’s 12-Month Journey from Climate Concern to Climate Credibility
June 26, 2025
"Co-planning means building trust and relationships before planning the project itself as a blended team."
Natalia RadywylCo-Designing New Power in Australia's Public Sector
November 16, 2022
"Assistive technology can feel like another person in the room during a research session, which you have to understand and include."
Kavana RameshMeaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence
September 24, 2024
"There are lots of little mushroom patches of design sprouting up, but they're disconnected and not sharing."
Michael LandEstablishing Design Operations in Government
February 18, 2021
"If you are questioning your path, that’s data. It’s a sign something needs to evolve and that’s okay."
Ashley SewallExit Interview #5: Designing My Life After Tech
February 19, 2026
