BoingBoing doesn't exactly need a shout-out from me, but this post is timely. Could it be that challenging yourself by working without assistance makes you smarter and, yes, faster in the long run?
As a child my main toys were paper and pencils. Colored pencils, yes, but you get the idea. We were poor, and I didn't have many of the kinds of toys that played with themselves. Now I'm a scientist. Anecdote, perhaps, but still.
Even today I find that I get lost when I'm out driving to places where I've been a half-dozen times ... if I'd been using directions or Alice had been telling me which way to go. If I have to work out the route myself once or twice, on the fly, I remember it. And as an added bonus, I remember the landmarks better instead of just driving past them looking for the next scheduled turn.
Sometimes we become slaves to our crutches.
When my boss wants to work out an engineering problem, he always grabs a pen & paper. We're part of the generation that complains about all these kids who are whizzes on computers, but don't seem to have been schooled in the basics of drafting, & the little tricks you learn when you have to draw every line & erase every mistake.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I prefer to work on the computer myself, but that's because it's harder for me to visualize in 3D on paper. And my handwriting sucks. However, when I want to remember something, I write it down. First time is the hastily-scribbled note, then later I compile my notes & do a "brain-dump" into my It's All In Here notebook (not a Day-timer, not an organizer, just lined paper in the most durable spiral format I can find at the office supply store). It's amazing what sticks in your brain when you take time to write everything that second time.
[And, yes, I keep them when they're full. You never know when you'll desperately want to figure out what happened 14 months ago]
Where I work they want to go to computerized lab notebooks. I can see the attraction, because you can index things and insert photos and plots into it, but I don't like the idea. My lab notebook has a lot of sketches, notes in the margins, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I can take it places where I wouldn't take a laptop. And it doesn't need to be rebooted.
I go through sticky notes like water. Now that I think about it, the smaller the sticky note, the faster I expect to deal with it and throw it away. 2" rectangles: one to two days. 3" squares: one week. 4"x6" pads: up to a month.