I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

No, actually it has been proven that writing by hand activates many other regions of brain so that might be the cause why youre feeling the difference.

There's a little notebook by my computer at all times for this reason. It isn't even just writing that helps when I'm trying to figure out a problem or pick a good approach, but doodling. Doodling while thinking seems to help things click into place and generate new ideas sometimes.

In my first job in games, my lead at the time took issue with seeing me occasionally doodle in a notebook in front of my PC. It wasn't a case of sitting there doodling all day and getting no work done, or not focusing. I'd only do it for a few seconds or a couple of minutes at a time, when thinking through a task or problem. After that interaction, I stopped doodling at work for a long time, to my (and I believe my work's) detriment.

Context shifts are actually great for changing your perspective and reinvigorating your ability to work around road blocks.

Switching from screen to paper is one way of context shifting. You could also switch a whiteboard.

You could switch to talking through the problem verbally with a colleague or, lacking that, a rubber duck.

You could just get up and go for a walk to think about that problem. Context shifting from indoors to outdoors can be a significant change.

It helps to learn how to recognize when you’re stuck, not making any progress, and have maybe a bit of “learned helplessness” slowing you down even further. Shaking up your context can help break out of it.

I can't keep the variables, constraints, and edge cases in my mind. I use diagrams and crude flowcharts so paper/S-pen on Note/Tab is a must for me. Staring at the screen or typing it out doesn't do much for me.

Writing is good for your toughest problems. For easier work, like tracking and prioritizing tasks, a text editor is more efficient. In both cases you want to minimize distractions.

I can't say I feel dumb(er) but I can certainly say that when I am stuck with a problem, I feel the urge to use pen & paper (s-pen & s-note) to work on the problem ;)

I am the exact opposite.

I type 150+ WPM and can’t write to save my life. Writing things down with pen/paper does nothing for me.

To me is the contrary. Writing by hand slows me down. Typing is a direct connection between my ideias and the text. Typing actually helps me think better.

It's useful to understand the difference between problem space and solution space. Writing code (in most languages) is all about writing in solution space, and sucks at talking about problem space. I find that most people tend to jump into their editor way too quickly and start writing the solution before they've thoroughly analyzed the problem.

When I jump from editor to pen and paper it usually means that I'm having trouble mapping the code I'm writing to a part of the problem Im'solving, and I switch to exploring the problem more before going back to the solution. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that's pretty much what happened to you as well.

Writing in my opinion is the best way to think through problems. It takes concentration and effort.

Jeff Bezos says the "smartest thing" they did at Amazon was to ban low effort presentations and embrace writing long-form briefs for each meeting. That made sure the problem was thoroughly thought out by the meeting owner and is read by the group in detail for the first 30 minutes of the meeting.

In open source, many projects adopt a RFC(request for comments) process in which a problem is written about exclusively with solutions and asking for public feedback. This works effectively in ecosystems like Rust, Python, JavaScript, and C#.

If you think about knowledge work in general, 80% of the job is problem solving, creative thinking, etc. 20% of the job is implementing / coding. Jumping straight to code was something I did when I was early in career, but now it's the last thing I do until I understand the problem in detail.

Without all the context, I think it is due to structure of the problem. Some problem can't be understood clearly with just text, but needs diagrams etc. Coq problem seems like one that could fall in this category. And if you are like me, rough diagramming in computer seems slower/harder than with pen and paper. For these kind of things, I found apple pencil+ipad to superior to both as you don't need to worry about space and page flip and you have all the advantage of free hand scribbling.

What I experience is that I can remember things I write a lot better. I’m not sure why. I can type a lot faster than I write.

Also for problem solving I agree. I also don’t know why but I feel a lot “freer” when I have a sheet of paper in front of me.

I don’t know about you but I feel a piece of paper provides much more freedom than a txt file.

While writing text is slower than typing, it’s much, much easier to choose where to write, and to draw lines and boxes. All tools that helps thinking.

> when I finally I decided to grab a paper and pen, and solved it in 5 minutes.

In defense of your hard work, it’s always the last solution you try that works.

Contratulations, you have discovered [Hammock-Driven Development](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc)! (also https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...)

People have spoken to the problem with pc typing being the every present editor just a backspace away. In writing or on typewriters you must delay edits until the final step. This allows you to cohesively restructure your thoughts.

For me, it is the opposite. I feel much more productive when writing code, to the point where my idea is "when I am not coding, I am not working". I don't even have a pen and paper at work. I have a phone with a stylus that I use as a substitute from time to time, and I sometimes take notes on text files, but 99% of my thinking is done while coding.

Code is what keeps me down to earth. It may seem like an unnecessary detail to think about how to pass a variable when you are barely familiar with the subject, but if you can't get something that simple right, chances are that your are going it the wrong direction and when time will come to do the implementation, you will be in a world of pain. Of course, a lot of that early code ends up being thrown away and reworked, but in the early phases, it is rarely a problem.

It probably has to do with a top-down vs bottom-up approach. I am much more comfortable working bottom-up, thinking first about the details and how they fit the big picture, rather than to top-down approach, where you think of the big picture and work up the details later. I think that both approach will eventually lead you to the same destination, so choose the one you are most confortable with.

Also, context matter. I do mostly low-ish level programming (mostly C++), I don't know about coq, but it seems to be more maths than technical engineering, so maybe a different mindset is required.

For me it depends on what I’m writing. I feel dumb writing a long article, but I feel much smarter writing short comments in response to articles.

Personally, I find that I remember things much better after writing them down with pen and paper versus typing. It's a very different kind of flow relative to programming on a computer with a keyboard which feels much more ephemeral.

I’ve been a professional for 10+ years and I have always used a notebook to work out issues. I fill a notebook in about 3 months. It’s really helpful for working through a problem in a free form way. I draw diagrams, tables, pseudo code, etc. Often forcing myself to think of the problem in a different way (writing it down) helps me understand what needs to be done.

I'd like to ask how you used the notebook. diagrams and drawings? quick notes and thoughts? what was it like and what was your thought process like?

I can attest to having seen papers on this, but am not able to track them down right now. The theory is not dissimilar to rubber ducking- using your brain to work in the problem space- which helps transition your mental model to solution domain.

Like you and others this experience with paper has also been my experience for decades. Perhaps of interest is that I transitioned from using paper to a Remarkable tablet, which is surprisingly great from a writing experience perspective, but which is deficient in the "paging through" experience that is so important with paper. Its still preferable to me to work digitally, and to unify around a device I can read on, and I am able to use it to work in problem domain reasonably effectively.

HTH.

Honestly, due to my perpetual difficulty with writing both neatly enough to read and quickly enough to keep up with my thoughts (it's always been an either/or thing), I feel much smarter when typing (on a physical keyboard; I also can't type that quickly on a phone keyboard). Adding in the ability to arbitrarily jump around and edit stuff, I feel like I can always express myself in a way I'm happier with at a computer than on paper.

Pen & paper provide the opportunity to use the full 2D plane for laying out your thoughts. I find this extremely valuable during conceptualisation, for sorting ideas, finding and highlighting connections etc.

Typing however is one-dimensional. Thoughts need to be serialised in order to type them out. Sometimes this is exactly what you need. For example, a linear narrative tends to make it much easier to explain your ideas to others. And of course code is just a serialised version of a program.

Back in the day, a shopkeeper in Japan might realize that they'd forgotten to pull out their abacus, that they'd been playing this musical instrument in their head to do calculations all morning.

One guides a slide rule to roughly the right position based on intuition, then homes in on the answer.

Calculators make people dumber.

I'm torn between doing all my math on 40 lb laser paper with an assortment of Staedtler Pigment Liners, or on my iPad Pro using the architectural drawing program Concepts. Either way, I'm drawing. A digital interface is like a bird taking flight when one becomes algorithmically involved.

I honest-to-goodness will frequently print out code to review or revise on paper. Being able to mark it up with pen freehand doesn’t let me do anything I couldn’t in a good editor, but it works better in my head.