Why Handwritten Notes Still Matter in the Age of AI Note-Takers

AI note-takers promise perfect recall with clean summaries and beautifully listed action items with minimal effort. For coaches and sales professionals juggling back-to-back conversations, that promise is deeply appealing.

And yet for all that gain something subtle is being lost. Thinking. because the real value of notes was never about capture, it was about what happened to you while you were writing them.

The Seductive Promise of AI Notes

AI note-takers are genuinely useful. They remove the cognitive burden of remembering every detail. They reduce admin time. They even create a searchable archive of conversations that would otherwise blur together.

If something else is listening, summarizing, and prioritizing for you, your role in the conversation subtly shifts. You’re still present, but you’re no longer doing the full work of sensemaking. Outsource your understanding and you'll miss too much.

What Notes Are Actually For

For coaches and sales people, notes are a thinking surface, a tool to reflect as the conversation progresses

Notes help you:

• Make meaning while listening

• Notice patterns as they emerge

• Act as a rapport building tool (looks back through notes, "earlier you said...")

• Hold competing interpretations without resolving them too early

• Translate conversation into judgment and choice

A good page of notes doesn’t show what was said. It shows what landed and stuck with you.

That distinction matters. Because in high-stakes conversations, discovery calls, coaching sessions and beyond, understanding isn’t something you do later. It’s something you build in real time.

What the Science Actually Says

The research on handwriting and learning isn’t new, but it is becoming clearer and more refined.

First, handwriting forces generative processing.

You simply can’t write everything down by hand. The speed limitation forces you to choose. To summarize. To paraphrase. To decide what matters enough to capture. That act of selection is the mechanism of learning.

When people type, or rely on transcription, they’re far more likely to capture words verbatim. Meaning-making is deferred. Sometimes indefinitely and the brain stays shallow.

Second, handwriting engages the brain differently.

Neuroscience studies using EEG show that handwriting produces broader and more integrated neural activity than typing (i.e. When you write by hand, more of your brain gets involved. You’re not just recording information, you’re actually processing it). The patterns associated with memory formation and conceptual encoding are more active when people write by hand.

In plain terms: handwriting looks more like building a memory, not just storing information.

Third, recall is stronger when understanding is required.

A large meta-analysis published in 2024 found that handwritten notes generally outperform typed notes on learning outcomes, particularly when the task involves comprehension, synthesis, or application. The advantage in handwriting is in the effort.

Finally, recording changes attention.

When people know a complete record exists, they engage differently in the moment. This is known as cognitive offloading. Attention softens because the brain assumes it can “get to it later.” And we all know too often it doesn’t.

Tl/Dr

Slower, effortful encoding leads to deeper learning. Handwriting naturally creates that effort.

Why This Matters More for Coaches and Sales People

Most professions can survive shallow notes. Coaching and sales can’t. These roles depend on:

• Interpreting ambiguity

• Tracking emotional and relational signals

• Understanding power, risk, and decision dynamics

• Noticing what’s repeated, avoided, or said sideways

That kind of understanding emerges from interpretation it doesn’t emerge from transcripts.

Handwritten notes support that work because they slow you just enough to think. They invite judgment. They make assumptions visible. They preserve uncertainty rather than smoothing it away.

AI notes, by contrast, are very good at producing clean, confident summaries, even when the situation itself is anything but clean or confident. In complex human conversations, clarity too early is often false clarity.

The False Choice Everyone Is Making

To suggest that this is a choice between handwritten notes or AI notes is lazy. The smarter frame is one of division of labour.

Let humans do what humans are good at:

• Interpreting meaning

• Making judgments under uncertainty

• Noticing emotion, hesitation, and subtext

• Deciding what matters

Let the machine do what machines are good at:

• Capturing verbatim detail

• Producing searchable records

• Generating drafts and reminders

In practice, that looks like this:

You don’t handwrite everything. You handwrite meaning. Decisions. Risks. Hypotheses. What you think is really going on. The question you didn’t ask but should have.

You build understanding. The AI stores information.

Practical Use Without Becoming a Purist

For coaches:

• Handwrite metaphors, repeated phrases, emotional shifts

• Write interpretations, not transcripts

• Capture “working hypotheses” you can test later

For sales professionals:

• Write beliefs about the deal, not product details

• Track decision dynamics and disconfirming signals

• Note where confidence feels real and where it doesn’t

For both:

• End key meetings with a 60-second recall, without looking back at your notes

• Write what you think you learned

• Then, if needed, check the AI notes for accuracy or gaps

If it didn’t make it onto the page, assume it didn’t fully land.

Another Risk To Consider

Over-reliance on AI notes doesn’t just change how we record conversations. It changes how we show up to them.

When we outsource listening and remembering, we risk becoming less accountable for our own understanding. The danger is disengaged presence. And in coaching and sales, presence is the product.

A Different Way to Think About It

Handwritten notes are a commitment to thinking while it matters not a rejection of AI.

In a world obsessed with capture, handwriting is an act of attention. In a world of instant summaries, it’s a refusal to skip the work of understanding.

Use the tools. Just don’t give away the part of the job that makes you valuable.

Because the goal was never to remember everything. The goal was to understand enough to choose well.