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
"Research does this and design does that creates an us versus them strategy that leads to needless friction."
Alastair SimpsonDebunking the Myths of Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
October 24, 2019
"The more specific a story gets, the more universal the themes are felt by everybody."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 3, 2019
"Attribution is tricky because design work’s impact often occurs six months or a year after the work is done."
Kristin Skinner Kamdyn Moore8 Types of Measures in Design Operations
April 16, 2020
"Trauma is a response to anything that's overwhelming—too much, too fast, too soon, or too long coupled with a lack of protection or support."
Matt Bernius Sarah Fathallah Hera Hussain Jessica Zéroual-KaraTrauma-informed Research: A Panel Discussion
October 7, 2021
"Helper texts appear when hovering on unfamiliar features, explaining what buttons or controls do."
Rittika BasuAge and Interfaces: Equipping Older Adults with Technological Tools
February 23, 2023
"Mergers and acquisitions require us to carefully avoid pitfalls when unifying user experiences."
Uday GajendarTheme 1: Introduction
June 9, 2021
"Now we’ve evolved into customer experience, working horizontally across all silos with service design."
JJ KercherA Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Prioritization isn’t about scoring to pick projects, but about facilitating discussion and aligning the team’s understanding."
Chris GeisonWhat is Research Strategy?
March 11, 2021
"People said graphical user interfaces are bad for accessibility and that blind people would have to stick to command lines forever."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
September 9, 2022
