Be honest – when was the last time you sat down with a pen and paper and started writing a letter? Or an essay? Or anything that wasn’t two-word post-it notes for your roommates? In the world where every form of communication seems to be happening through a smart device, people have long forgotten the benefits of writing with good old fashioned pen and paper. So the next time you are coming up with a strategy that will help you increase your team’s productivity, sales and profits, substitute your personal computer for a piece of paper and let the magic happen. How? You are about to find out!
It will boost your brain’s development
Study after study shows that handwriting is an important aspect of brain development and cognition. A number of experiments with school-aged children and college students were conducted, both of which came to the same conclusion – students who wrote by hand showed better results and came up with more ideas than the ones who wrote on a computer.
If it works for students and young intellectuals, the same approach should definitely prove to be fruitful for your staff. So make sure you buy bins to organize your office supplies which will include pens and different writing blocks, and distribute them to the desks of all of your employees.
Writing with good old fashioned pen and paper helps you remember better
It can’t be denied that writing on a PC is a much faster way of taking notes. So if you are ever in a situation where you have to make an exact copy of a speech or a lecture, you would achieve the best results by choosing a computer for the task. However, if the goal is to remember better, then your success awaits with pen and paper. Writing by hand won’t give you enough time to write down the exact words that were uttered. That means you will have to paraphrase what you heard, which will stimulate your brain in all kinds of ways. That will help you better digest what you heard, as well as filter out any unnecessary parts.
Besides, writing with a pen and paper is the cheapest form of taking notes. It pretty much entails zero investment, so if your business isn’t running as well as it could be and it’s going through some financial setbacks, then you might want to think about cutting your costs. Cutting costs is never an easy thing, and it requires a lot of thought and planning.
But the good news is that there are many small ways through which you can prevent financial drainage. If you are constantly relocating your office, you could save money on packing supplies that last like plastic bins. You could downsize to a smaller office, or you could go back to doing things the cheaper, old fashioned way. Writing by hand whenever possible will have a small but important contribution to that.
It excludes online distractions
As much as 64% of employees admit to visiting a website that’s unrelated to their work at least once during a workday. While a big portion of that 64 % spends an hour a day on Internet distractions, a concerning percentage of people have revealed they waste more than 10 hours per day! With all the e-mails, Facebook messages, and Instagram notifications popping up is this waste really such a surprise? On the other hand, when you write with good old fashioned pen and paper, all you have are your thoughts and the silence. And except for occasional daydreaming and doodling, writing by hand will provide no waste of time! Besides, one really has to wonder whether daydreaming is such a negative thing.
Writing with pen and paper sparks creativity
This one is really difficult to measure precisely – not to say impossible. Nonetheless, a plethora of different essay writers and directors say that, when writing the drafts for their new projects, they always do so manually. That’s because writing with good old fashioned pen and paper is a process that usually sparks creativity. Think about it: you are in a silent room, alone with your mind. Your thoughts are bound to start running, which will help you come up with more creative ideas. And creative ideas are definitely needed whether you are trying to create a technology product that lasts or write the next best-selling novel.
It feels more personal
Finally, we can all agree that online documents will never feel as personal as handwritten notes. When you think about it, you will realize that our handwriting is our form of identification – just like our fingerprints. So when you are reading someone else’s handwriting, you are seeing a very intimate part of them. A part they decided to show you. And that’s not something that can happen with online messages.
Besides, when you are writing a speech, notes, draft or even a letter on a piece of paper, you have great creative freedom. You get a chance to alter that text a couple of times and make it fit your current emotional state. And if you are reading someone’s piece that was written by hand, you are getting an insight into their thinking. That, we can all agree, is a great privilege nowadays.
The bottom line is that you will love writing with pen and paper
There is no denying that the world has definitely changed since the days when we wrote everything by hand. And no one can deny that computers are really handy inventions that bring about a host of benefits. But that doesn’t mean we should forget about writing with good old fashioned pen and paper from time to time. That’s especially true if you are in dire need of some inspiration and creativity. Then all you have to do is sit in a silent room, equip yourself with nothing more than one pen and one piece of paper, and let your brain roam free. Because there’s no telling where it might go, and how much it might achieve.
Author Bio: Michaela Evans is a high-school teacher in Clearwater who also works as a freelance writer. She majored in English Language and Literature and considers it her privilege to be able to shape this nation’s youth. Her passions include reading, writing, and photography.
