Why Your Brain Learns Better in Analog Mode

Your phone can store every note you’ll ever take. Every passing thought, every to-do list, every half-formed idea, and it’s all right there in your pocket. Yet, you still feel foggy, distracted, and forgetful.

That’s the paradox of the digital age: more storage and information, but less clarity. When ideas pile up on screens, they blur together into noise. This is the very reason why writing on paper has been around for so long. Your brain thrives on friction, on the slower rhythm of writing things down.

Writing in analog mode sharpens your creativity and memory.

In this edition of Learning to Learn Well, we’ll explore how pen and paper, and even doodles in the margins, can unlock deeper thinking than any app ever could.

PART 1: Challenging Our Assumptions

We’ve been taught to believe that digital tools are automatically more efficient and therefore better for learning. In some ways, that’s true. I use them myself every day. But efficiency doesn’t always equal depth.

Research shows that handwriting activates more brain regions than typing. When you write by hand, you’re engaging fine motor skills, spatial memory, and a deeper connection to the words themselves. A student scribbling lecture notes in a notebook is more likely to recall the material later than one typing it out verbatim on a laptop.

It’s more important to make an effort to remember your notes than just to do the act of taking them. In Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, and Mark A. McDaniel, the authors emphasize the power of retrieval practice and summarization. Writing by hand forces you to process, condense, and translate knowledge into your own words, which is an active step that strengthens memory.

Here’s a practical experiment for you to try: start by handwriting your notes in a dedicated notebook, then transfer them into a digital format. With today’s tech, you can even snap a picture and convert your handwriting to text instantly. That way, if you do want to access your writing on the cloud (like I do), then you can. However, if you want to make your note-taking even more effective, then taking the extra effort and time to retype your notes allows you to get an extra round of recall practice.

Yes, handwriting is slower. But that’s the point. It slows your thinking just enough to deepen it. Like the tortoise in the old fable, sometimes slower really is smarter, especially if you’re strategic about what you capture and how you revisit it later.

Photo by melanfolia меланфолія on Unsplash

If you need proof that analog thinking leaves a lasting mark, look no further than Leonardo da Vinci. His notebooks, thousands of pages filled with sketches, mirror writing, and wild questions, are still studied today, more than 500 years later.

Walter Isaacson’s biography highlights how Da Vinci’s habit of constantly jotting down observations transformed curiosity into insight. He sketched water swirling in rivers, dissected human anatomy, and scribbled questions like, “Why is the sky blue?” These weren’t polished essays or neatly typed documents; they were messy, alive with ideas in motion.

What makes his notebooks remarkable is not just the brilliance of the content, but the process itself. By slowing down to draw and write, Da Vinci forced himself to see more deeply. His hand was literally tracing the contours of thought, and that friction between mind and pen is part of what allowed his ideas to endure.

Digital files can vanish in an instant. Da Vinci’s ink on paper? It’s still sparking new ideas half a millennium later.

Marie Curie’s Radiant Journals

Marie Curie’s notebooks are so charged with history that they’re literally radioactive. Over a century later, her lab journals remain too dangerous to handle without protective gear. Yet scientists and historians still study them, because they contain the meticulous records of her groundbreaking experiments with radium and polonium.

Curie’s habit of recording every detail by hand wasn’t just about data collection. It was about discipline, persistence, and creating a permanent trail of thought. Each handwritten entry became part of the scaffolding that supported her scientific breakthroughs. The very act of writing, day after day, helped her transform invisible phenomena into visible knowledge.

Her example reminds us: sometimes the slow, deliberate act of writing is what makes invisible ideas endure.

Rick Rubin’s Analog Simplicity

Jump forward to the present, and you’ll find a different kind of creator leaning on analog tools: Rick Rubin. In The Creative Act, Rubin describes his preference for simplicity, sitting with pen and paper, letting ideas surface without the noise of screens. His journals are less about meticulous record-keeping and more about presence.

Rubin argues that creativity emerges when you strip away distraction and listen closely to what’s inside. Writing by hand slows the pace just enough to notice patterns, capture fragments of insight, and stay in dialogue with your own mind. For him, a notebook is a quiet space where ideas can breathe.

PART 2: Entering the World of Analog Creativity

Making the shift into analog is about reclaiming a space for deeper thought. And one of the simplest ways to start is through journaling.

Journaling acts like a mental RAM reset. Stream-of-consciousness writing clears the clutter that crowds your head, unfinished tasks, swirling worries, and half-baked ideas, and puts them on paper where they can’t hijack your focus. The page becomes a container, giving your mind room to breathe.

And while you’re journaling, don’t be afraid to scribble or doodle. If you’re a visual thinker, sketches in the margins can spark surprising connections. Even underlining, drawing arrows, or creating little bursts of emphasis (something I often do in my own notebooks) adds energy to the page. These marks may look casual, but they’re part of the creative process: they give form to thought.

There’s also a powerful effect in what I call “analog friction.” Writing by hand takes effort, and that small bit of effort forces selectivity. You can’t write as fast as you can type, which means you filter out fluff and get down to what truly matters.

Analog also saves you from digital distraction. When I write on my laptop, I’m tempted to jump tabs, check a reference, or wander off into research. But when I’m handwriting, I can simply jot a note, ‘look this up later’, and stay focused on the flow of my thoughts.

Research backs this up. Studies on “generative note-taking” show that the act of summarizing by hand leads to deeper understanding and better recall than transcribing by keyboard. And psychologist Jackie Andrade’s research on doodling found that people who doodled while listening remembered 29% more information than those who didn’t. In other words, doodles don’t distract—they anchor your attention.

Manual methods and techniques

• Cornell Method: This method divides your paper into three sections: a main note-taking column, a smaller left column for keywords or questions, and a bottom section for a summary.
• Charting Method: Useful for subjects that involve a lot of facts, statistics, or chronological events. You organize notes into columns to compare and contrast.
• Outline Method: Structure your notes in a hierarchical format, with main ideas marked with Roman numerals and supporting points indented below.
• Mapping Method: A visual technique that centers a main topic and branches out with related ideas, good for visual learners and brainstorming.
• Summarizing and paraphrasing: A core component of all manual generative methods, requiring you to re-process information into your own words instead of writing verbatim.

So whether you’re journaling, doodling, or just underlining key phrases, the analog page doesn’t just record your thoughts. It reshapes them, filters them, and often reveals connections you might have missed in the rush of typing.

EXERCISE: How to Start a 5-Minute Analog Practice

You don’t need a leather-bound journal or fancy fountain pen to begin. All you need is a simple notebook and a pen you enjoy using. Keep them beside your laptop or wherever you normally work. Then, try this short practice:

Step 1: Set a Timer for 5 minutes Before you dive into email, social media, or your day’s tasks, set a timer for just five minutes. This small boundary makes it easier to start—no pressure to “write a lot,” just five minutes.

Step 2: Brain Dump (2 minutes) Fill the page with whatever’s on your mind. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or structure. Let it be messy. Imagine you’re unloading the random tabs open in your brain onto paper.

Examples:

• Worried about the meeting this afternoon.
• Excited about that new book I started last night.
• Need to remember to buy milk.

Think of this as a RAM reset—clearing mental clutter to make space for what matters.

Step 3: Spark with Scribbles (2 minutes) As you write, underline, circle, or doodle around the words that stand out. Draw arrows to connect related thoughts. If you’re more visual, sketch a quick diagram or symbol for an idea.

Examples:

• Circle the word meeting and draw an arrow to “prep talking points.”
• Doodle a lightbulb next to “new book idea.”
• Sketch a star beside “exercise after work.”

These small marks turn your notebook into a map of ideas, not just a list.

Step 4: Highlight One Next Step (1 minute) Glance over what you’ve written. Pick one idea that feels most important or energizing. Write it at the bottom of the page, bold and clear.

Examples:

• Prep talking points for meeting.
• Outline chapter notes from book.
• Go for a 20-minute run after dinner.

That one step becomes your anchor for the day.

Why it works: Five minutes of analog practice slows your thinking just enough to sharpen it. You leave with a clear mind, a few sparks of creativity, and one concrete action to guide your day.

The High-Stakes Shift

Digital tools give the illusion of productivity. You can fill folders with typed notes, color-code endless task lists, and feel like you’re “on top of things.” But too often, digital notes slip into shallow learning and distraction loops. Tabs pull you away. Notifications fracture your focus. Your brain treats the words as disposable rather than meaningful.

Analog, on the other hand, creates an advantage that’s hard to replicate: ideas captured by hand are more likely to be remembered, reflected upon, and acted upon. The page doesn’t just store thoughts, it changes how you engage with them.

The beauty of analog is its openness. You can write anything you want, in any way that feels natural. Personally, I keep a few different notebooks:

• Task Notebook – A simple, prioritized list of what needs to get done each day. Nothing fancy, just pen on paper, but the physical act of crossing off items is surprisingly satisfying. (I’ll include a snapshot below.)
• Journal – A space for free-flow, unfiltered writing. Sometimes it’s a brain dump, sometimes it’s reflection, sometimes it’s just venting. But the act of writing it down clears my mind and helps me spot patterns I wouldn’t see otherwise.

Both notebooks serve different purposes, but they share the same effect: they ground me. One provides clarity and precision; the other releases mental clutter and sparks creativity. Together, they keep me balanced and moving forward.

That’s the high-stakes shift: digital tools may trick you into thinking you’re productive, but analog habits anchor you in real learning and real progress.

Analog as Identity: A Declaration That Ideas Matter

Choosing analog benefits you when you commit words to a notebook; you’re declaring that your ideas deserve to last.

For me, that act of writing by hand signals permanence. My notebooks are always there, stacked neatly on a shelf or waiting on my desk. Unless I physically lose one, which is rare because I keep them on my desk 90% of the time, they’re a reliable archive of my thinking. I can flip back through them, touch the pages, and see the trail of my own growth.

Digital notes, by contrast, can disappear into the void. They’re not lost, exactly, but buried, hidden away in some forgotten Notion database or tucked into a ChatGPT chat history you’ll never scroll back through. Unless you’ve built a ritual of opening those files every day, they’re out of sight, out of mind.

But a notebook sitting beside you? That’s a constant reminder. It’s physical, tactile, unavoidable. It invites you to return, to review, to keep building on what you’ve already captured.

When you write things down on paper, you’re making a statement that these ideas matter, and they deserve to be remembered.

Emma Watson’s Three-by-Three Journaling Ritual

Actor Emma Watson has made journaling a daily ritual. In a 2023 British Vogue interview, she explained that her journal is so important to her that if she could only bring one item on a plane, besides her passport, it would be her notebook. Every single day, she writes in it.

Watson’s practice is simple but powerful: she records three joyful moments from the previous day, three acts of kindness (whether she gave or received them), and three things she did well or liked about herself. These prompts anchor her attention on gratitude, generosity, and self-compassion, all of which strengthen her mindset and sense of well-being.

It’s a reminder that journaling doesn’t need to be complicated. A few minutes each day with pen and paper can shift your focus away from distractions and toward what really matters.

Try It Yourself

Tonight, take five minutes with a notebook and pen. Write down three things in each of these categories:

• Three Joys: Think back over your day. What made you smile, laugh, or feel lighter? It doesn’t have to be big—maybe it was a good cup of coffee, a kind text from a friend, or a song that lifted your mood.
• Three Acts of Kindness: Note one kind thing you did for someone else, one kind thing someone did for you, or even a small moment of care you showed yourself. These don’t need to be grand gestures—holding the door, checking in on a colleague, or receiving a compliment all count.
• Three Things You Did Well: Acknowledge your wins, no matter how small. Maybe you stayed calm in a stressful moment, followed through on a task you’d been putting off, or showed up to exercise even when you didn’t feel like it.

Reflection: The Pen Over the Keyboard

I encourage you to take action, preferably today or tomorrow morning at the latest. Before you open your laptop, pick up a notebook. Jot down a page of thoughts, or simply doodle while sipping your coffee.

Notice what ideas surface when you give your mind space. They’re often the ones that screens and endless scrolling would have buried.

Learning well isn’t about cramming in faster inputs. It’s about building deeper connections, so that your outputs become sharper, faster, and more meaningful.

Sometimes, the pen really is mightier than the keyboard.

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