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.
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
"Most users don't know what they want until you show it to them."
Prayag Narula Hannah HudsonEmpowering Designers to do Good Research
March 11, 2022
"Finance is the common language that all domains can speak, especially critical if you want a seat at the executive table."
Giff ConstableFinancial fluency for product leaders: AMA with Giff Constable
April 11, 2024
"Design at scale is really humanism at scale."
Lada GorlenkoTheme 3: Introduction
June 10, 2021
"We’re helping to create those natural conditions in which design and designers thrive by bringing our own sense of sacredness and nobility."
Jon FukudaTheme One Intro
September 8, 2022
"We’re not studying products anymore; we’re studying experiences in ecosystems."
Jonathan Fairman Kevin JohnsonIntegrating generative AI into enterprise products: A case study from dscout
June 5, 2024
"Retrofitting accessibility at a later date is difficult, costly, and demoralizing."
Sam ProulxAccessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
September 8, 2022
"Melinda Belcher has succeeded both as an outsider consultant and as an inside enterprise manager, and will share how to leverage those differences."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"I never thought I'd say this, but can someone please for love of God, just make a RACI so we can align on who's responsible for things."
John CutlerThe Alignment Trap
November 29, 2023
"Despite automation, many people still skim information or are busy and need simpler, focused communication."
Roy Opata OlendeHow Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
August 6, 2020
