Why Athletes Take Notes By Hand

When engaging in the formal practice of ally work, most of us write by hand. I’ve long thought this to be meaningful in multiple ways – whether considering writing as a 5,000-year-old technology, an embodied practice, or as metaphysical enactment of creation being written into being.

In this story from The Athletic, we learn that some athletes are fastidious about taking handwritten notes:

It was supposed to be a casual lunch, just a chance to network with an NFL legend and influential rapper.

But when Fernando Mendoza, the rookie quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders, sat down with Tom Brady and Travis Scott earlier this year, he couldn’t help himself. He wrote down everything on a notepad.

At just 22 years old, Mendoza has earned plenty of accolades: college football national champion, Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 pick. Yet if the NFL gave out an award for copious note-taking, he’d be in the running for that, too.

So why is written note-taking helpful?

There are plenty of benefits to writing longhand. The process of taking notes can help with memory and recall. Handwriting is slower than typing, which forces people to summarize and rephrase a teacher or coach’s point in their own words. The synthesis can help with understanding. But the biggest benefit for learning is in what educational psychologists call the “external storage function,” a fancy term for a simple idea: taking notes creates a document to review.

This “document to review” is also how writing by hand functions in the practice of ally work. These notes are our storage and memory to return to and work with in adapting the learning – from the dialogue with the ally – into our lives. Rather than an ephemeral encounter, the written record aids us in review and integration.