Kindling from the web:
Going old-school to learn. Research continues to affirm the value of good old-fashioned note taking. A recent Wall Street Journal article asks Can Handwriting Make You Smarter? Researchers comparing the long term learning of students that took notes by hand with those using a laptop found that “those who wrote out their notes longhand took down fewer words, but appeared to think more intensely about the material as they wrote, and digested what they heard more thoroughly.” That’s a handy thing to know the next time you want to commit something to long-term memory.
Start a network franchise. Supercharge your professional networking efforts. Fast Company suggests How To Enlist Other People To Do Your Networking For You by forming a “network franchise” among a few committed colleagues who scout opportunities for each other. “Unlike personal networking or even the happenstance introductions, this is based on a shared commitment to proactively advancing the networking goals of each person involved.” It could be one of the hottest franchise opportunities to get into—and it won’t even cost you a dime.
Super-productivity checklist. A recent article in Forbes offers a quick checklist to tune-up your productivity. 15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently is a compilation of “secrets” from 200 ultra-productive people. I’ve got a secret. Most of these are not secrets—nor surprising—but they do make a good checkpoint. How are you doing with these “secrets?” Secrets 2 and 14 have been a big wins for me lately. Now just 13 more to go.
Latest personal kindling:
Don’t fear fear. Hate to say it, but FDR got it wrong. We don’t have to fear fear. Listen to my Reinventure Me podcast to learn How to make fear work in your favor.
Partnership prep. Planning to form a business partnership or reevaluate one you’re already in. You may enjoy the most recent Reinventure Me podcast where my co-host, Armin Assadi and I share What you need to know before you form a partnership.
“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.”
— Unknown
Leave a comment about this venture kindling and/or share some of your own.
The studies in the article about handwritten notes seemed to be done mostly with college students. Since most if not all college students at this point grew up handwriting their notes in elementary and high school, I wonder if that is a large factor for why they learn better from writing something instead of typing something. I would love to see how students who grew up with computers their whole education career would fair in these same studies.
Hey Nolan. Thanks for your comment. It’s a good observation and probably something a neuroscientist somewhere is studying. I wouldn’t be surprised if your theory that it’s dependent on the early learning modality is confirmed. However, I do remember reading at least another article somewhere that suggested that the recall advantages observed are thought to be because the eye and hand are coordinated and focused on the same thing in handwriting, which is not the case in typing. I suspect as technology moves to adopting more tablets with handwriting recognition that some of those advantages that may have been lost, will again return. In any case, I suspect there will be more and more studies on handwriting and recall.