The University of Toronto’s law program will have handwritten notes this September. No computers. (Note: It won’t be every class – each professor gets to decide.) But they are doing it for a very good reason.
The school’s argument is essentially:
Typing = recording information. Handwriting = deciding what matters.
Summary of school’s argument provided by ChatGPT.
I’ve long been a fan of handwritten notes. It engages more of the brain. In fact I wrote about this in a LinkedIn newsletter: https://lnkd.in/p/esvNgDnA
But then I started to wonder
Could I turn my handwritten notes into a formatted post/blog post/newsletter?
The answer — if you’re reading this (and you are) — is yes. The formatting and layout were completely done by CoPilot. (Side note: It even looks better in Word – but Linked In can only handle so much in terms of formatting).
How the sausage got made
Step one: I wrote the body of the article in my notebook (see picture above).
Step two: Since it was going to Word I fed the picture to CoPilot. (I was a little unsure about this because CoPilot isn’t my first choice for most things)
Step three: I asked CoPilot to create a fully formatted Word document following the printed directions. The specific starting query:
Please create what you see here in a word document following the instructions along the way – i.e. header font, italics, etc. Ask me one question at a time until you have enough information to complete the task.
Steps 4 through 12: CoPilot asked me questions. Lots of them.
But. It. Worked.
I had managed to get the best of both worlds. The thinking and analysis that comes from writing plus the cool formatting from a computer.
In theory the next time I do this (tomorrow). Things will be quicker since CoPilot knows my preferences.
In practice? Stay tuned.
Okay – it’s a small use case. But I’m still pretty psyched about this idea – but I’d love to hear your take. Where would (or does) handwriting work better for you?