When even newborn children have gadgets, the habit of writing ideas and plans into a notebook is almost a thing of the past. It’s easier to use a smartphone that’s always at hand. We do not argue that paper notes are often lost; they are more difficult to organize. And if the author’s handwriting is far from ideal, then it will be problematic for colleagues or other people to read such notes. But it turns out that the old-fashioned way of fixing thoughts is very useful. And it has a big impact on our productivity. In this article, we decided to figure out why this is so.
Handwriting Helps Focus
Working with a computer or laptop has become so familiar to us that we no longer notice the load on the nervous system due to the glow of the screen, the running of the cursor, advertising and informational garbage that pours on our heads. The ability to receive any information at any time kills creativity. And the constant temptations to spend “only a minute and a half, and no more” on social networks or other entertainment platforms are the main enemies of productivity.
In addition, scientific research suggests that when a laptop is used exclusively as a notebook, without distracting the user to all kinds of multimedia fun, the degree of comprehension and memorization of the text is still lower than in the process of writing by hand.
Written Planning Saves You Time
When you fix your plans in writing for a day, week, month, you do not waste your time. You save it. It just seems like planning takes a lot of time, but in fact, when you write down your plans, you make your day more structured. You no longer need to think about it tomorrow as Scarlett because you already did it yesterday.
As a result, you have a written action plan for every day. You can begin to fulfill the primary task right now, without wasting time on additional thinking. Setting your priorities in writing is the key to personal productivity.
When each your task is fixed in writing in order from more important to less important, the order automatically appears in your thoughts. You no longer need to quit one task, because the deadline for the next is already coming. When you have correctly distributed the time for each task in writing, you have already done 50% of the work.
Moreover, writing down plans by hand, we can once again feel the importance and relevance of each action. It may happen that a certain task seemed important to you, but as soon as you put it on paper, you see that it will turn out to be a waste of time. Feel free to delete this item from the list. Fix only what is really important. As soon as secondary matters are postponed forever as unnecessary, you will have a lot of free time for really urgent tasks.
Your Goals Become Clear and Tangible
All personal growth and development coaches unanimously approve – you need to write down your goals in order to achieve them. It is impossible to act without a goal and without a plan. Your goal may be global and difficult to reach, but as soon as you record it, everything changes.
This is no longer a global and unrealistic goal, it is just a task. If this task involves performing several different or repetitive actions, you need to break it down into sub-tasks or time periods in writing. For example, you might write that you need to learn ten new words in a foreign language every day in order to learn a language in a year.
Now you need to return to the previous paragraph and just write this task in your daily plan.
You Can Monitor Your Progress
It is difficult to move forward and not see your results. And vice versa, already conquered peaks motivate for new achievements. And in order to get this dose of motivation and inspiration, your goals and plans had to be written down.
In practice, it is very nice to give yourself a plus for each action performed according to plan. Your self-confidence will grow with each plus opposite to the performed action, with each completed task, with each page of your written diary filled out.
And all that is needed for this is paper and a pen. These two simplest tools can help you understand what you really want from life and how to achieve this.
You Choose How to Work with Information
By drawing or writing down plans and thoughts on paper, you can use different ways of representing information – in the form of diagrams, tables, conventional signs. Thanks to this, the situation looks more obvious and the solution to the problem is easier to find.
In addition, to memorize and process important information, the brain is often attached to various text artifacts: handwriting style, page appearance, drawings on it, drops of tea or coffee on the pages.
And the printed text has only one standardized form. It is no different from one document to another. Therefore, the ability of the brain to effectively perceive such information is lower. This is partly why writing lectures by hand is much more useful than typing. The main thing is to keep the idea that was thought up on a napkin or paper sheet in a more reliable place so that you do not forget about it later.
Instead of the Conclusion
Even if paper and pen are attributes of the past, you should not ignore their potential. This is not the case when you need to chase trends and share your plans, goals, and achievements with your followers on Instagram. Writing by hand helps to clean up our thoughts, dreams, and goals. This is really a way to turn a dream into a real goal, simply by sequentially writing down each step necessary to achieve it. When used correctly, written planning is simply a magic pill for productivity in all areas of life.