The act of drawing something has a “massive” benefit for memory compared with writing it down – Research Digest

In some cases, the patients’ drawings looked just like scribbles. But how good – or bad – the drawings were didn’t seem to matter. In fact, in most of the experiments, the researchers assessed their participants’ ability to create vivid images and also their experience at drawing, and neither was correlated with memory performance. Even people who struggle to create a stick figure should, then, get memory benefits from drawing.

Could also be a good case for using Sketchnotes to capture information.

By the way, both this link and the previous one via Austin Kleon’s always excellent newsletter.

Why Is Japan Still So Attached to Paper? – The New York Times

In an age of sharply escalating computerization and digitization of everything into an intangible ether, it can be hard to remember that paper, too, is just another medium, something that acts as a transmitter for something written or typed in the past.

Chris J Wilson – I still love paper

I can divide my life into the disorganized forgetful mess I was before I had my first notebook, and the increasingly organizing and effective person I am still becoming since then.

Brad Dowdy shares his notebook notation system on Instagram

“I was asked what syntax I use in my notebook: 🔲✔️ for tasks #️⃣ for notes/ideas ↪️ for sub-notes That’s it!”

Ink Foraging in Central Park — The New Yorker

On a recent drizzly Tuesday morning, a small group of ink enthusiasts—already rain-slicked, under umbrellas and ponchos—stood on Gapstow Bridge, in Central Park, admiring a brilliant-pink pokeweed bush. The Park was the first stop on a five-hour foraging trip that would take them up to Hudson Heights, to collect foliage and trash, which they would cook, to make ink.

This is really cool! I had no idea this was even a thing.

Well-Read Life: The Peace of Paper

On paper, we can reflect, gaze out the window, and return to the same page we left. Instead of it changing, we change. If screens are about going fast, paper is about going slow. If screens are where we connect with others, paper is where we connect with ourselves.

How to keep Analog Alive in the Edit Mines — The Pen Addict

You’re going to have to do edits–probably lots (and lots) of them–and sure, you’ll have to input them into the digital doc, but if you’re analog-minded, I highly recommend making your edits on a hard copy.

A Year On Paper | Jamie Todd Rubin

Excellent and detailed post about his return to paper journalling.

(via Harvey Morrell)

The Wile Fallet – The Entanglement

Information storage today is a perfect example of almost everything in the era of the Entanglement: some old problems have been solved, but vastly more have been created, and we have lost virtually all personal control of the information. We have to negotiate with our technology now for it to yield any value, while constantly dodging the vast and terrible threats created by its rampage across the world.

A lovely and incredibly well written ode to the permanence of paper and a brand of file folder I’ve never heard of before.