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Are handwritten stenography systems (such as Gregg shorthand and Pitman shorthand) still useful today for personal productivity? If so, how can they be incorporated into daily life in a digital age?

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Yes it is still useful, when you take down notes for your boss, if you cannot catch up right away. It is useful in law offices also. –  user4862 Feb 13 '13 at 7:33

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up vote 6 down vote accepted

If you know it already, it's certainly useful. You can get your thoughts to paper faster and more clearly than if you have to write out each letter, abbreviate, or omit words.

As for whether or not to learn it, it may be better than voice recognition for a long time, but it's a risk/reward analysis whether it will pay off for your particular circumstances (whether you can use tech everywhere or not, etc.)

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Stenography is much faster than typing. This can be extremely important when you talking to somebody who is not going to repeat anything he said (maybe your boss or high-class client). But if you do not know it, you should think about time you will spend to learn it. May be it is not worth to learn for you.

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The merits of stenography incorporated in personal productivity could be compared to the benefits of note taking. When you condense the content not only did you summarize the memory load or list, you'll remember it longer since you wrote it down by hand rather than depending on only one sense e.g. hearing or reading. One proverb stands, "The weakest ink is better than the strongest memory." This refers not only to the ever lasting record but also the recording act itself. Also, my psychology professor once said that our brains hate mundane repetition and thus if we make the material we need to learn into something interesting (like into a puzzle, or a visual cue, silly mnemonics, or shorthand to decode, etc) we improve the process's efficiency and most likely the productivity.

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