Conquer Patience Thanks To Writing By Hand
By: Mathias Barra
Tags: Handwriting, Writing, Patience, Time, Self Reflection

I’ve already discussed the importance of writing by hand when it comes to learning languages. Indeed, the time it takes gives time to the brain to form memories which will last longer.

However, that isn’t the only advantage there is to it. Another often overlooked one is developing patience.

No matter how fast you can write, it’s pretty much always going to be slower than typing on a computer or phone.

Do we have the time to spend on such a task then?

No, we don’t.

But that’s exactly the point.

We’re always in a rush to do things and writing something is no exception. We want to get to the next thing quickly after all.

Our agendas are cramped with tasks, both useful and somehow pointless ones.

“I have to check Instagram after this.” “I need to watch that next episode today.” “I know it’s late but I have to reply to that person today.”

What’s the common factor of all those? The need.

But is that “need” actually true? Many actions we do on a daily basis can be retrograded to a few times a week, weekly tasks or even just monthly ones.

Fixing the time to write for yourself will force you to figure out what you are doing too much of and what could be retrograded.

Dig within

That first task of looking for time to write will provide you with an overview of your time.

Overviews are useful but usually not enough to actually dig deep in what actually matters.

Writing by hand gives you that opportunity. As you write a sentence, you can already start having ideas for the following one. And the following one, and so on.

But still, the longer the sentences you write, the more time you have, don’t you?

What can you do with this time? You can look reconsider your thoughts.

We all know this. The more time we have, the more we procrastinate and ponder.

A classic example of this is writing a thesis. You’ve got months ahead of you, all the time you need to write it but keep on reconsidering details, finding new ideas which contradict some of the original ones. But when the deadline is coming close, all of a sudden, you start writing and going forward quickly. You finish on time and wonder why you had so much trouble at the beginning. It doesn’t make sense anymore.

Reconsidering is good for yourself

When writing by hand and starting to reconsider your next thoughts, you find the opportunity to dig deeper, to challenge ideas you’ve had.

Little by little, you’ll actually even go as far as stopping between ideas to develop your thoughts on a certain topic.

This is obviously possible when typing on a phone or computer but the habit of typing quickly takes over most of the time. As a result, you end up going forward instead of stopping for a moment.

The action of stopping for a moment is where patience lies.

Instead of following your urge to go forward, you slowly learn that taking the time to think things over isn’t such a bad idea, and can appreciate more and more taking a break to think things over.

Such a tiny change in your life can modify the way you will act outside of writing too. You will ponder just a bit more, just a tad deeper, just slightly more, before you act.

And you know what? Taking just a few extra moments to think won’t bother anybody and you’ll act/reply more in alignment with who you truly are.