Shorthand

(Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Sloppy Scrawl.)

I keep a written diary (I call it my "log") in a pocket notebook and
try to update it as frequently as possible.  For this reason, I'm
often interested in methods to improve my ability to write notes.

For a long time, I looked at my terrible handwriting in despair. I
wish this looked nicer, I thought. It's embarassing, it's ugly, and
worst of all, I can't even read what I wrote a week alter.

I can block print very neatly if I slow down, but this is not my
default mode when I just want to commit an idea to paper.


So I was reading about shorthand writing systems the other day. They
were quite interesting and I was surprised to discover that there
are so many different systems.

But I read one thing that stuck with me: that the shorthand notes were
not intended to be a permenant record - they're context-dependent and
wouldn't necessarily be readable on their own a long time later.

In other words, the person taking the shorthand notes was expected to
transcribe the notes (presumably on a typewriter) shortly after
completing the note-taking.

(I'm not sure if this description was about just of *one* of the
shorthand methods, or if it's true of shorthand note-taking in
general.)


What gave me an 'ah-ha' about this was realizing that this is exactly
how my own quick note-taking works: it's an absolute mess with 'M' and
'W' characters devolving into a series of wavy lines, 'a', 'o', and
'e' are just partial circles, and  many letters are left out entirely.

It ain't cursive, printing, nor pretty.

But the thing is, if I'm good about transcribing my log within a
couple days, I (almost) always know exactly what I wrote.  The context
and memory of the note fills in the gaps.


So it turns out I'm not being lazy - I'm simply writing in a weird
shorthand borne of repeatedly trying to write faster than my hand can
properly form the letters.

The bonus is that I never had to "learn" this "system". It just 
happened on its own.


It would be neat to be able to produce legible handwriting at the
speed of, say, typing.  But there's really no need. Capturing the idea
is all that matters.  You can always write it neater or type it up
later.  Just don't wait too long!