Taking notes digitally is a hassle, right? Managing batteries, opening apps, screens? Ugh, screens. But here’s ten reasons why taking notes digitally is superior to pen and paper.
1. You can filter!
Your notes are organized. You have bookmarks and tabs marking where things are located, you have a system. Four years through your education, you forget where things are because your system keeps evolving. In short, searching through your notes is a pain. Especially when items interlink later on. In a digital note, you can easily filter and put tags in it, like for an exam, or if an item is due for a review. Also, some AI solutions are bound to give your notes a boost by making practice questions out of it!
2. Digital Notes are Waterproof
Imagine pouring hours into carefully crafted notes (or rapidly written, illegible notes), only to have them ruined by an accidental coffee spill. Or maybe you’re caught in a rainstorm on the way home.With digital notes, those worries disappear. Your notes are safe from environmental mishaps and can be reprinted anytime if needed. Plus, with cloud backups, even a stolen device won’t cost you your notes—just sign in on another device, and you’re good to go.
3. They are LIGHTWEIGHT
You don’t have to bring pages of paper when you need to refer to your notes. Notes are light in the beginning, but as you accumulate knowledge, they get heavier and bulkier. Not with digital notes! You can easily fit thousands of pages worth years of knowledge into your phone or tablet, weighing them in bytes!
4. Lasts forever
Ink fades, paper yellows, crumples, and rips.Digital notes, on the other hand, last as long as you need them—without a single yellowed page. Except when you pick a yellowish background. Now even if a platform closes, apps like Obsidian allow you to keep your notes offline, forever. There’s even a sync feature, or you can implement the sync yourself. These tools allow you to save data offline, ensuring your notes are safe and accessible for years.
5. Enhance with Animations, Pictures, and More
Easily paste pictures. Animations too! Want to add a visual flair to your notes? Digital platforms let you insert images, animations, and other multimedia elements with ease. Adding visuals not only keeps your notes engaging but also aids in retaining information. Say goodbye to hand-drawn sketches; a quick copy-paste is all it takes to include a relevant image. Nowadays, with the rise of AI, generate exact pictures as you pictured it in your head.
6. Legible font!
What if your handwriting is trash? I type much faster than I write, and the result is guaranteed to be very neat. No more struggling to decipher rushed handwriting or hastily scrawled notes. With digital note-taking, you can select from a range of fonts, ensuring your notes are clear and easy to read. Plus, for many people, typing is faster than writing, helping you keep up with fast-paced lectures or brainstorming sessions without sacrificing legibility. There’s even fonts for Dyslexia (https://opendyslexic.org/) or Bionic Reading (https://bionic-reading.com/)
ps. Bionic Reading works for me but not for retaining much info. It’s faster, but that’s about it.
7. Seamless Cross-Referencing
Need to reference something from earlier? With digital notes, cross-referencing is as easy as clicking a link. Many note-taking apps allow you to link to other notes or even external online sources, making it simple to pull in additional information without flipping through pages.
8. Embed Videos!
Digital notes take linking to the next level with the ability to embed videos directly. No more writing down a URL to check later—just embed the video within your notes, and it’s ready to view whenever you need it. This feature is especially useful for study material, tutorials, and lectures.
9. Sync and Backup for Peace of Mind
Like in no. 4, digital notes usually automatically sync across devices and are backed up to the cloud, so your notes are safe from accidental loss. No need to worry about leaving a notebook behind or misplacing an important page—your notes are securely accessible from any device, anytime. This feature offers peace of mind and ensures that your work is never lost. Or rather, you don’t need to carry your notes everywhere because they are readily available! (Assuming the dedicated hardware also exists)
10. Easy Sharing and Collaboration
Need to share notes with classmates or colleagues? Digital note-taking makes it easy to share specific notes or collaborate in real-time. Apps like Notion, Google Keep, and OneNote support shared access, allowing others to add or edit information. This collaborative potential is something that simply can’t be replicated with pen and paper. I mean, they can, but it’ll require occupying the same space. With our 3d human bodies, this is simply not possible. Maybe when we have 4-dimensional Avatars.
In a world that values efficiency, accessibility, and resilience, digital note-taking has become an invaluable tool. Make the switch, and you might never go back to paper. With these ten advantages, digital note-taking clearly stands out as a superior choice for efficiency, longevity, and collaboration. Making the switch might just revolutionize the way you learn and work.
In my case, I still have my flying school notes when I started in 2017, and is neat. I don’t have any of my notes before that stored, because it’s handwritten, and therefore, not legible.
Have this convinced you to take notes digitally?
What do YOU think? Let’s discuss below!
