Aight, so I've realized something seriously messed up about digital note-taking, and it's something I think a lot of us fall into. It's this weird paradox: because I can type so fast, I end up taking worse notes. Sounds counterintuitive, But follow me.
See, when you're writing with a pen, you're naturally limited. You have to be selective, you have to prioritize what's important. You can't write 150 words a minute using your arm. That thing is gonna go flying out the window, and then we'll be hearing about another play crash on the nightly news.
You don't wanna be that one armed man, do ya? Wasn't he in a movie or something? I dunno...There was an In Living Color skit I remember. I loved that show.
Your noodle of an arm is stuck in shallow water. It's rocking Ninja Turtle floaties, and feeling cute.😘 But with a keyboard, the floodgates open. You feel this pressure to be absolutely euphoric...to type everything becomes your mission!!
Here's a perfect example: I'm watching a tutorial on building a debugger in GDevelop. I know how to navigate the program, I know how to access the variable options. But because typing it out is so easy, I end up writing down every single step, even the ones I already know. It feels like I'm being thorough, but I'm actually just creating a mountain of useless information.
I've been down this road before, and it always ends the same way: I go back to my notes, and it's like trying to find a new analogy in a stack full of familiar ones. I'm skimming through endless details, trying to find the actual nuggets of wisdom. It's a massive waste of time, and honestly, it kills my motivation to learn. It's like my own extracted ideas are drowning in a sea of unnecessary fluff.
Recently, I stumbled upon some videos about physical note-taking, and it sparked something in me. I grabbed one of those mini notepads I have lying around and started writing down the technical(and useful) stuff related to LMMS, GDevelop, and Blender. You know, the really crucial, specific details that I can never remember off the top of my head.
With Blender, it's usually about resetting the 3d cursor. 😅
Don't get me wrong, my digital notes aren't completely useless. But they're bloated. They're like a steak that's been left out too long – the good stuff is buried under a layer of fat. I need to go back and edit, to trim away the excess and get to the core of what's important.
I'm realizing that the physical act of writing forces me to be more selective, more intentional. I preferred typing for that very reason in the past. It's a restriction I once viewed as detrimental to my development.
Turns out, writing by hand slows me down just enough to make me think about what's truly worth noting. It's a reminder that sometimes, less is more, especially when it comes to learning. And honestly, it feels good to put pen to paper again. Just like drawing with an actual pencil instead of a stylus, I now have a tangible connection to the information, a way to actually process what I'm learning, instead of just mindlessly transcribing it.