Handwriting vs. Typing (and Why I Won't Fight You)
Okay. How'd the first five minutes go? Even if all you got down was "I don't know what to write," that counts. I mean that.
Now let's talk about pen versus keyboard, because somebody always asks me this by week three and I'd rather just get into it now.
My honest opinion
Handwriting wins, for me. Not because it's more spiritual or more "real" or any of that. Because it's slower, and the slowness makes you think.
When I type, my fingers outrun my brain. I'll write a whole paragraph and realize I never actually decided what I meant, I just typed fast enough to sound like I did. With a pen, the hand can't keep up with the thoughts, so you slow down to match it, and something about that slowing down is where the useful stuff shows up. The complaint underneath the complaint. The thing you didn't know you were mad about until you saw it in your own handwriting.
That's my opinion. I'm not going to die on this hill.
If typing is what gets you writing at all, then type. A journal you actually use beats a journal you were too precious about the "right" way to start. I will not sit here and tell you your Notes app entries don't count. That's the kind of gatekeeping I can't stand, and I've had people tell me they quit journaling because someone convinced them typing didn't count, and I think that's a shame and a waste.
What I'd actually try
Here's my suggestion, and it costs you nothing:
Try both for a week. Three days handwritten, three days typed, whatever order you want. Not to grade yourself. Just to notice.
- Does one make you write longer without meaning to?
- Does one feel like a chore before you even start?
- Do you find yourself editing as you go with one and not the other? (Typing tends to invite editing. Your thumb's right there on the backspace key. A pen doesn't have a backspace, which honestly might be the whole point.)
Write down which one felt easier to fall into. Not which one you think you're supposed to prefer. Which one you actually reached for on day four when you were tired.
A practical note on tools
If you go handwritten: any pen that doesn't skip is fine. I like a gel pen because our air out here is so dry it makes regular ballpoint ink drag a little for me, but that's a me thing, not a rule.
If you go typing: turn off notifications first. I know that sounds obvious but half the point of this is getting your own thoughts uninterrupted, and a text popping up mid-sentence will scatter you every time.
Where I've messed this up
I'll tell on myself here. A while back I saw a video of somebody's bullet journal — those color-coded spreads with the little boxes for habits and moods and water intake, all drawn out with a ruler — and it looked so organized I thought, that's it, that's the system, I'm doing that.
Mine fell apart in about a week. The boxes got crooked. I'd skip two days and then not know how to catch the tracker back up, so I'd just stop opening the notebook entirely. I quit it, and I didn't feel bad about quitting it, and I told everybody I quit it, because I think there's a version of this class where people see something pretty and organized and think that's the bar, and it just isn't. My journal is a mess most days. Half-finished thoughts, a grocery list on the same page as something about my mother. That's not a failure state. That's just what a used journal looks like.
So if you try handwriting and it turns into you fussing over your penmanship, or you try typing and it turns into you formatting bullet points instead of actually writing — notice that. That's the system distracting you from the point, same as my little boxes did.
The point was never the system. The point is getting something true out of your head and onto a page, in whatever handwriting or font gets you there fastest.
Before next time
Do your three-and-three, handwritten and typed, and just notice which one you didn't have to talk yourself into. No right answer, and nobody's grading your penmanship or your typos — mine's full of them too. 😊