A laptop or a good old-fashioned pen and paper for taking notes? Just as snail-mail has given way to email, when it comes to taking notes most business people today prefer to type than write by hand. The reasons are many and varied. Typing is more legible, comes more easily and naturally, and is quicker for most than writing longhand.

However, research has shown that the benefits of hand-written notes far outweigh those using an electronic medium. Educators discourage, sometimes ban, students from bringing laptops into the classroom for fear that their use will interfere with concentration and learning.

Studies have shown that students who use laptops for taking notes tend to transcribe the information without processing and analysing the ideas in their own minds.
They ‘hear’ the lecture but don’t ‘think’ about it. This seems to be the one crucial difference in the two methods of note taking: writing and typing.

So which method are you going to use next time you need to take some notes? Get yourself a pretty notebook, a ClaudiaG Noteworthy perhaps, and carry it with you everywhere you go.  Your notes will not only be on paper, but fresh in your mind.