My handwriting was bad when I was in school. I wrote fast because I was a note-taker, wanting to capture everything I could in case it was on the test or I never heard it again. But when I looked back at my notes I had trouble deciphering what I had written.
In college I thought that my handwriting was so bad because I was rushing through writing words that repeated over and over. This is this way BECAUSE of that, this number is BETWEEN this and that, and other words.
I read about shorthand and after several attempts to learn it on my own gave up. I would look at it every few years, try a few strokes, then put it away again. The whole concept of writing phonetic symbols still boggles my mind! I probably will not be able to learn Arabic or any of the other phonetic written languages, we'll see.
Anyways, in an effort to speed up my handwriting I came up with some of my own abbriviations of words. I thought that if I could use these abbreviations it would give me more time and I could slow down and write more legibly.
Here are some of the abbreviations I came up with:
w/ = with
b/ = because
b// = between
backwards 3 with line above and below = and
square = a task or todo
I looked at and tried some of the official logic symbols like the three dot triangle that stand for "therefore" but never could stick with it. I even tried the delta triangle symbol to capture the change of things but it never looked right to me and made me think too much. I've tried arrows through a square to show a task was rescheduled; that one looks great in the articles I read but never worked for me.
After using a Handspring Visor/Palm Pilot device for a couple of years I even tried writing the digital "grafitti" alphabet it used on paper. Because I was drawing each character it slowed me down and was legible but just looked weird in the real world. But it was so fun I still use it when I want to bring attention to something!
The best thing I did to improve my handwriting was to switch to my left hand. Now I write almost all the time with my left hand and most of what I write is legible. The other best thing I did was to type things. And with our mobile devices that's been an easy transition. But it doesn't work the same was in my brain as handwriting does.
My abbreviations and shortcuts have helped a lot over the years. I sometimes use them when I type, but not a lot.
It's fun to try new things!
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