Five Reasons Why We’re Fans of Writing by Hand

When was the last time you wrote something by hand?

Just because you have a car, it doesn’t mean that you stop walking. In the same way, just because you use a computer keyboard: it doesn’t mean you stop writing by hand.

We know that learning to write by hand is important for children. It improves fine motor skills. It activates their brains in ways that typing can’t. It helps them become better learners. And of course, learning to write is a basic literacy skill.

But once you’ve graduated to a keyboard, is there any reason for an adult to write by hand anymore? Of course there is!

At Uncle Goose, we use our hands for writing every day. We start by designing products in an honest-to-goodness paper notebook. And we take care to write out your cards and notes by hand.

Around the office and workshop, we leave messages for each other on sticky notes. And yes: we even outlined this article by hand before we typed it!

Even though we have computers, we’re fired up about using our hands to draw and write every day. Here are 5 reasons why we’re fans of using our hands:

1. Taking notes by hand makes you a more nimble and creative thinker. When you write by hand, you can’t keep up with what a speaker is saying. To compensate, you quickly synthesize the essence of the content. This means your brain and body is more fully interacting with the material than if you were merely typing a transcript. You’re literally using your hand to draw conclusions that are more personalized to your experience.

2. If you don’t use it, you lose it. If you use the keyboard too much, you’ll start to see the quality of your penmanship decline. Writing by hand uses fine motor skills. Your hand muscles need regular practice to keep your hand-written notes beautiful and legible. If your handwriting has declined: pick up a pen and commit to daily practice to get better!

3. People crave the personal touch of handwriting. Your Uncle Goose writes all customer gift cards by hand. That’s because a hand-written message is like a snowflake: no two can be exactly alike. Handwriting is artistic expression. It reflects the care, craft, and deliberation of a thoroughly individual message.

4. A pen and paper limits distractions. Computers are great, but wow, can they ever be distracting! So many alerts and messages come pinging through at such a speedy pace! Stepping away from it all to doodle and dream yields far more focused and poignant expressions. We could all stand to slow down, reduce eye strain, and unplug from our fast-paced existence.

5. We just plain like the feeling. There’s some great research behind the idea that writing by hand calms the emotions, helps creative expression, and improves memory. However, we won’t point any of those studies here. We’ll go by gut feeling and say that it feels great to grab pen and paper. When we write by hand, we feel calm and creative. The ideas flow. The expression of ideas is languid and vivid.

We can’t be alone in these feelings, can we?

If you haven’t written anything by hand lately, why not step away from the computer for a few minutes? Grab a pen and paper, and get into the flow.

Compose a thank-you note to a customer. Leave a sticky note reminder for a spouse, colleague, or friend. Write a few paragraphs in a journal.

Or drop us a line! We love hearing stories from customers about how they’re using our toys to learn, grow, and have fun!