Put it in (hand)writing for maximum impact
Does anyone write by hand these days? Is there any real need for handwriting anymore?
After all, this is the age of electronic access excess. We’ve got email and instant messaging and social media sites and blog posts we can get to immediately and nonstop thanks to wireless Internet, smart phones, tablets, or laptops that are always nearby. We get news and music and sports and weather on our handheld devices anywhere, anytime.
That’s precisely the problem.
We are “connected” yet still isolated by the torrent of information that flows past. We no longer have the luxury of time. Time for ourselves. Time to relax. Time to reflect. Time to digest our experiences and arrive at some insights. Most of us probably don’t even recall emails from six hours ago.
There is something tenuous and impermanent about electronic communications even if they live on forever in the digital ether. Maybe it’s because all those ones and zeros come at us so fast and in such large quantities that we have no way to take in all of it or even a significant portion of it. It just melts into one big digital blur.
The handwriting-retention link
Although Common Core education standards de-emphasize hand writing after the first grade, researchers are now saying that hand writing is more important to learning and remembering than previously realized. Writing down notes by hand while listening to a lecture, for example, forces us to focus on the gist and helps us recall it later. Writing by hand may even positively affect our ability to reason.
While handwriting gets a second look from educators and cognitive scientists, let’s not ignore its importance in business right now. Writing by hand forces us to slow down and focus, something we don’t do much any longer. Usually, our attention is split in so many ways we no longer have the ability or energy to pay real attention to any one thing or any one person. (Multitasking is highly overrated, even if it’s often essential to get everything done during the workday.)
When we take time to write out a hard copy thank you or holiday greeting card, however, we tell the recipients that they are special to us. We pay them the ultimate compliment of our time, attention, and thought. We also stand out because so few business people write by hand. The written word is powerful for business development and employee engagement.
If we are smart and strategic, we use handwritten thanks and greeting cards with handwritten messages in them to get our companies noticed and build that social capital we all hear is so important to business success. Writing by hand may take more time and effort, but it is well invested in our business success.
