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 varied use cases including prosthetic memory, creative ideation, reading annotation, and lecture capture, each requiring different media.
-
•
Handwritten notes promote deeper flow and better attention in certain tasks due to slower processing and lower temptation for verbatim capture.
-
•
Digital notes offer superior searchability, organization through tags and links, and multimodal content inclusion like photos and audio.
-
•
Combining handwritten and digital notes through workflows, like scanning or direct digital handwriting, yields benefits of both media.
-
•
Using 'wrapper notes' in applications like Obsidian integrates scanned or digital handwritten notes with metadata for projects and people.
-
•
Developing an emergent, evolving metadata and tagging system is more effective than premature optimization of note structures.
-
•
Avoid transcribing handwritten notes fully; OCR and wrapper notes provide sufficient search and reference, saving time.
-
•
Beware of spending excessive time optimizing note-taking tools and processes at the expense of actual work and thinking.
-
•
Extended Mind Hypothesis supports that notes and environment can be considered extensions of cognition, augmenting brain capabilities.
-
•
AI tools like GPT-4 can help summarize and reflect on notes, acting as a reality check to uncover missed insights or gaps.
Notable Quotes
"Notes are a way to enhance our thinking, not just a prosthetic to memory."
"Paper has no boot up time — you just open it and start writing."
"People who take handwritten notes tend to remember lectures better because they make the information their own."
"Digital notes are infinitely organizable and easily searchable unlike paper notes."
"Handwritten notes allow deeper flow because you can draw, make arrows, and creatively express ideas."
"The goal is not to take notes. The goal is to think effectively. – Andy Matus."
"It’s easy to waste time fiddling with tools and processes instead of focusing on the actual work."
"I resisted premature optimization in tagging and let structures emerge bottom-up from actual use."
"Using wrapper notes in Obsidian lets me relate notes by project or people and jump between related ideas."
"You can give a text to an LLM and ask what you might be missing — often it comes back with surprises."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"I titled my speech a blueprint because it’s a series of lessons I’ve learned throughout my career."
Jennifer KanyamibwaCreating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
November 8, 2018
"Having a repo isn’t the same as having a strategy for socializing and evangelizing the research."
Brigette Metzler Dana ChrisfieldResearch Repositories: A global project by the ResearchOps Community (Videoconference)
August 27, 2020
"Project delays are frequently due to organizational and cultural issues rather than actions of the project team."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"We come in like water—hanging out, listening, figuring out where the blood flow is in the environment."
John Mortimer Milan Guenther Lucy Ellis Patrick QuattlebaumPanel Discussion
December 3, 2024
"Gallup says only twelve percent strongly agree their onboarding is great; that’s an abysmal metric."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"We tend to confuse the experience of people with user experience, and I’m less interested in user experience than in the experience of people."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Many of us have worked as outsiders, insiders, and then outsiders again throughout our careers."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"We don’t celebrate failure; we celebrate the attempt and risk-taking."
Dan WardFailure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
February 7, 2025
"The talks today start more societal and foundational and end with advancing our day-to-day research practice."
Chris GeisonTheme Two Intro
March 28, 2023