alt Hacker NewsThe slowness is a feature, not a bug. It gives your brain time to chew on it a little bit, digesting the information and storing it away instead of just copy-pasting.
Speed-hacks like shorthand and stenographers' machines are for copying exactly what was said, not consuming and understanding it. I would be very surprised if there were not very old studies moldering in a paper journal somewhere investigating the information retention of secretaries / stenographers compared to "naive" note-takers.
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It gives your brain time, but reality may not give you that time.
Someone who is typing a fast paced one time lecture, who can then take their time afterward to digest, is going to do much better than the "slowness is a feature" hand writer.
I've seen this first-hand with people taking handwritten notes in meetings
A sidenote along these lines - I've recently done an MSc, and found that the default approach to lectures is now to present slide decks. One of the profs, however, delivers a more traditional lecture, writing everything on a blackboard. I've found the second style far more effective, largely because writing caps the rate at which information can be conveyed. Because slides have no such bottleneck, I've found they're often misused and overladen with information which is skipped over too quickly.
+1 Deciding what to write is the critical step. You can get it with careful typing, but it's harder because you can type fast enough to skip that step.
I recently started journaling by hand and was somewhat frustrated with the excruciatingly slow speed versus typing. Eventually, I realized that the slowness was, as you said, a feature. It forces you to think. You have no choice but to take time with your words. Sometimes brevity is a gift (one I usually don't have).
I migrated to fountain pens and haven't looked back. Partially, it's because I enjoy the experience itself as much as writing, but partially it's because they've forced me to become even more deliberate.
I'd highly recommend it!