Note-taking In Ford Improved Shorthand
I prefer note-taking by hand. It helps me remember things and allows me to visualize information. The downside to hand-writing notes is that it can be slow. So when I heard about shorthand, I was intrigued.
Shorthand first emerged as a way to take dictation. You can use it to record spoken words with minimal strokes. Gregg, Pitman and Teeline are the most commonly used shorthand methods. Gregg and Pitman are phonetic, so you record the sounds of speech rather than the spelling. Teeline is based on the Roman alphabet. With Teeline, you omits vowels where possible and shorten prefixes and suffixes.
These methods are interesting, but I didn’t have the time to invest in learning them. I chose to try Ford Improved Shorthand because it is modern and simple. Like Teeline, Ford is based on the Roman alphabet.
I noticed the similarity between Ford letters and Roman letters right away. This made Ford easy to pick up and remember. After writing the Ford alphabet a couple of times, I already knew 80% of the characters. Soon I had the characters memorized.
Next, I practiced using Ford to write down the dialogue while I watched Netflix. Writing was slow at first. I had forgotten some of the harder to remember letters (s and z, for example). And others (like e and h) were so similar that I’d confuse them.
I wasn’t really planning to continue using Ford. I just tested it out for fun. But during my first few days at Galvanize, I tried taking my notes in Ford. It ended up being more entertaining than my traditional print writing.
Since then, I’ve continued to write most of my notes using Ford. It has taken a lot longer for me to learn to read Ford than to write it. I’m starting to recognize common words, but I still have to spell out more complicated words in my head. This doesn’t bother me much, as I take my notes to absorb the information and don’t go back through them very often. If I did reread my notes, I would pick up on reading Ford faster. Of course, writing in shorthand might not be the best idea if you want other people to be able to read your notes. But if you want privacy, it’s a good option.
Using Ford to take notes on coding, in particular, can get complicated. I write code examples in Ford, but if an example requires nuanced syntax, I will write it out in print.
If efficient writing interests you, you might also want to check out:
- The Open Steno Project, convert your keyboard into a stenography machine
- Dvorak keyboard, practice writing with Dvorak keyboard layout
