Planners And Time Management: How Can Hand Writing Boost The Brain ?
The Case For Planners & Handwriting
With the increasing use of electronic gadgets for communication (i.e. iPhone and Android smartphones), the use of paper and pen or pencil to write down ideas, make notes, or letters has come down dramatically. However, new research shows that the act of making strokes and shapes when forming letters during writing can help the cognitive process in school children and as well as others. As Bounds reports in the Wall Street Journal on How Handwriting Trains the Brian, scientific evidence now reveals that making notes, writing in journals, and so on can help everyone from school children to baby boomers. One way of ensuring daily hand written work is to use a paper-based planner, weekly planner, and so on.
How can a Person Include Hand Written Work in their Daily Life?
Given the increasing use of electronic gadgets for communication, many people no longer write by hand. This can be a great loss as it can lead to a drop in cognitive skills. One way of ensuring that you write at least a few words every day is to use paper-based planners as much as possible. These notes to yourself will ensure that you are exercising your cognitive skills. You can use cognitive thinking tools such as spiral bound daily and weekly planners, organizers, mom schedules, or an academic schedule – aka a student planner - depending on your individual circumstances to ensure that you get in a little bit of writing each day.
Can Hand Written Planning Improve Focus?
Studies conducted with school children in grades 2, 4, and 6 reveal that those who actually used paper to write on when composing essays and doing other schoolwork revealed that they used more words, wrote faster, and expressed more ideas than students who were given this opportunity. This is believed to be because the process of forming strokes is different and sequential when compared to keyboarding where entire letters are keyed in with a single tap. In order to benefit from this new knowledge, people can use goal setting planners or journals to express their ideas and clarify their thoughts.
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What are the Planners and Journals Available for Hand Written Exercises?
In order to benefit from the cognitive exercise afforded by hand writing and to ensure that you write a little bit each day you can use planners and journals from Tools4Wisdom Printable Planners. The various planners offered by Tools4Wisdom are designed for people in various situations. Whether you are a student, a mom, or a busy executive, you can find the right planner for your needs. They offer wall calendars that can be used to schedule individual, family, or team activities. The planners are designed to help you plan for multiple responsibilities by providing prompts.
Where can You Obtain Spiral-Bound Journals?
Those who want to write a journal to help clarify their life goals or improve their thinking process can use the spiral bound journals from Amazon-fulfilled Spiral Bound Planners. These journals and planners help in introspection in many ways. They can prompt you to make better use of your time by helping you become more aware of your activities.
To learn more, visit Tools4Wisdom ("Tools For Wisdom") or watch the below video:
Living in the NOW ------ Integrating the Be-Do-and-Have Principles
The Be - Do - Have Principles
Just for a moment, reflect upon natures way vs human nature's way via the Acorn-Seed Metaphor:
:
The essential wisdom of ancient Zen Buddhist teachings can be summarized within the
BE - DO - HAVE Principle.
Nature's way:
- Focus on Inner Potential (acorn)
- Purpose-Driven Constant Nurture
- Deeply-Rooted Accomplishments (Oak tree) that outlast the most difficult challenges
Human-Nature's way:
- Focus on HAVING (Money / Power / Status / Possessions)
- - "so that I can DO what I want"
- - "so that I can BE happy"
When we overly concentrate our energy and life-force on "Having" - we start to loose perspective of what we "love to DO" and "who we really ARE". As a result, we take a huge risk of missing our true potentials!
So what can we DO ?
Consider the words of wisdom from Socrates - "Know Thyself" - along with three reflection questions that each one of us needs to answer, and then integrate into our daily lives.
Follow this link to explore the ACTIONABLE portion of this post...
