Should you journal by hand?
While I would never suggest that one must handwrite one’s journal entries, I’ve tended to consider it helpful, due to the ability to more easily shut out the inner critic while writing, for the simple reason that writing by hand uses more of the brain’s resources. I don’t remember exactly where I first read that. It might have been Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, which is more about creative writing than journaling. The idea she promotes is that in order to move the pen, the brain has to engage motor skills. It’s more like physical exercise, and that leaves the mind freer from the internal editor or self-criticism.
I’ve found that my preference is to journal in the mornings or evenings, away from my computer, on paper, with a smooth-writing pen.
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron seems to imply that handwriting is best for morning pages, and yet that book was first published in 1992, before most people had home computers. I got my first home computer in 1988, but I was an early adopter as far as I know. So there wasn’t much reason, at least in the early edition I read of The Artist’s Way, to even mention whether to write morning pages by hand or not. I do recall sometimes typing my personal journal pages on an electric typewriter, many years ago, mostly when I was quite young and probably happy to have the typewriter. But even then I most commonly chose to write them by hand.
It seems to be implied, perhaps more generally by the plethora of journal notebooks on the market, that most journaling is done by hand. That doesn’t mean it has to be, and there are some good journaling applications available for computers, if one doesn’t want to simply use a word processor or text editor. I keep an application called RedNotebook loaded on my laptop all the time. It’s a free, open-source app with versions available for many different operating systems. Once I’m seated at my computer, if I have something I want to journal about, I use RedNotebook. It’s easier and quicker to type out those thoughts that occur to me.
But my handwritten journals are much different than those quickly typed entries I might make in the course of the day. When writing by hand, I feel as if I’m communicating more intimately with myself, and I’ll get down deeper into my feelings about things. Even if it’s not deeper feelings, it’s often deeper, more complex thinking that takes place.
Each has its strengths. Typing is better for me when I’m in a rush to get my thoughts down. But when I want to access my own inner reaches, or when my creativity seems blocked or dried up, pen to paper tends to work best. If it’s creative writing I’m after, many times I’ll find that I can access my imagination, my creative center, more easily with pen and paper, and then once the ideas are flowing, I can switch to the keyboard and take off. Sometimes that takes just half a page of handwriting, just to help me know where I’m going.
Note Taking
However, there is something to be said for a simple paper notebook and pen or pencil that one can carry anywhere, and many people are going back to using them.
Pocket Notebooks Can Save Your Mind (YouTube link)
There’s something that happens when one relies on digital formats, that might not be conducive to journaling or even note taking. I find, for instance, that when reading on my Kindle, I have a tendency to highlight far too much. It’s so easy to do. And then I look at what I’ve highlighted and realize that it’s too much, it’s more than I needed, and those brief gems I really wanted to save are hidden among all those other highlights that aren’t that important to me, so the important passages don’t stand out for me as I intended them to.
But if I require myself to write notes by hand, or even require myself to type a note in the e-reader about any text I highlight, then my natural laziness induces me to be more selective about what I take note of. Again, handwriting seems to make sense.
New Brain Science on Handwriting
All of these things cross my mind now and then, about typing versus handwriting, and then today I came across this from NPR:
Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning
Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.
I hope this will encourage schools to go back to teaching cursive again, where it’s become less emphasized or has been abandoned. I was a bit shocked to read a while back that it was being discarded as a necessary skill. But this research indicates it’s helpful and even necessary for learning, and may even enhance long-term brain health.