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
"You can't just expect insights to solve themselves if people don't know about them."
Jake BurghardtFinding More Inroads into Research Impact
February 20, 2026
"I often think of myself as a stakeholder strategist because sometimes the design title doesn’t quite capture it."
Chris Govias Mai-Ling Garcia Emily LessardPerspectives on Civic Design
September 23, 2021
"The estuary is highly resilient but also very sensitive to industrial waste—creative collaboration areas in organizations are similar."
John CutlerOxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
December 3, 2024
"Every parent we talked to had some variation of the question: this exists, can I use it right now? Where was this when I needed to apply?"
Sarah GallimoreInspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future
November 18, 2022
"The best future leaders will embody the qualities, skills and traits of a DEO, a Design Executive Officer."
Maria GiudiceEmpowering change: Reigniting purpose, passion and impact in research
March 13, 2025
"There’s quantitative ways of driving value and qualitative aspects, but we have to break it down into what kind of value we’re aiming at."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"It’s not enough to just see inputs at the altitude you’re working at; you need visibility into the inputs around you for proper context."
Ellie Krysl Jon FukudaPlanned Right. Managed Right. Designed Right.
June 6, 2023
"The best future leaders will embody the qualities and traits of a DEO — design executive officer — creative business leaders at the intersection of design and business."
Maria GiudiceBecoming a Changemaker by Leading with Design
March 29, 2023
"The more you worry about every question not being answered, the more it distracts from influencing what matters most."
Sarah Alvarado Nalini P. Kotamraju Anne Mamaghani Peter MerholzHow to make UX research leadership more effective [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
October 26, 2023
