Handwriting” moves the arm, the eye and the brain – “Memo & Notebook Techniques” that change your life by daring to go analog

By moving your hands, you can remember and visualize.

With the coming of the New Year, many of you may be thinking about making changes in your lifestyle. There is an inexpensive way to drastically improve your lifestyle. All you need is a pen and a notebook. If you don’t have a notebook, just cut up last year’s calendar and use notepaper.

Nobuyuki Okuno, author of “Moyamoya, moyamoya ga jumbo ga suki suru tegaki noto & memo jutsu” (Clear the muddle and clutter with a handwritten notebook & memo technique) (Kawade Shobo Shinsha), explains.

If you are thinking of starting a diet this year, why don’t you start by recording your daily food intake and weight in a notebook? Don’t use notes or photos on your phone, but go as analog as you dare. Handwriting not only moves your hands, but also your arms, eyes, and brain. Even if you write poorly, handwriting makes it easier to remember. If you just take pictures of what you eat, you will end up flushing it down the drain.

I also use the to-do app on my phone for scheduling, but I often lose track. Even if it’s tedious, if you write it down in a notebook, it will stay in your memory by writing it down with your hands, you can visualize it, and points for improvement in your diet will naturally emerge.”

Okuno began keeping a notebook at the age of 22, and now has 264 notebooks. By writing down even the amount of food she eats in detail, she is able to quantify her own physical condition through continuous notes on how much she needs to eat to feel energized and active, and how much more she needs to eat to feel sleepy.

You don’t have to spell it out in detail like I did from the beginning,” he says. For example, you will be able to see how many times you eat ramen in a week. The factor that caused me to gain weight will be ‘I ate too much ramen at night,’ so I can switch to eating less tomorrow, or substitute buckwheat noodles.

Just put the bag of disposable chopsticks or the receipt of the restaurant where you ate in your notebook. If you write something like “Kitsune Soba, it was delicious, the service was good” next to it, it will be unique and will remain in your memory for sure. By continuing to do this, you can tackle even the toughest diets cheerfully.