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There have been a lot of studies on handwriting and memory. The Wall Street Journal article How Handwriting Trains the Brain talks about one such study that shows that children learn to recognize letter shapes faster and more accurately if they write them out rather than typing them. Writing by hand also helps adults who are learning a graphically ...

I do have a diary, however I do not update it every day (due to an lack of proper structure in my evening routine). For me personally the benefit is not the possibility to read again entries from the past, but to be forced to think about what occurred during the day, what things you did were smart (or not so smart) and what the focus during the next day(s) ...

Pomodoro technique & breaking tasks down into to smaller subtasks helps me get through this type of work. Tasks that leave me brain-dead, I leave for the afternoon instead of morning, so I can go home when I am finished. I also block them all into half of one day per week. Spreading them out into something like one hour a day usually doesn't work for ...

Something that helped me a little while ago was to realise that there was no real relation between the dread of the task, and the effort required to do the task... For example there have been tasks on my todo list that look like "email X about Y" that have sat there for nearly a week with me dreading them everyday. But it turns out that tasks like these ...

I'd go with pomodoro technique as suggested by Dina. Yours seems more a problem of time and feeling management than one related to the difficulty of task. I tailored this approach for you. I think it's going to work! First step: Start a kitchen timer (25 minutes) and make suer you hear its ticking On a sheet of paper create a LIST with all the mails you ...

Does maintaining Diary/Journal really pays back? Yes. It is a record of your life. Things you write down bring back memories, emotions, and feelings. It is a great way to reflect on your past. How should I maintain it so that when I refer back later it helps me? This is a personal preference. Do you just want something to write in? A diary or journal ...

I also keep a diary, in a big text file, partly to record the day's events, but also to keep track of progress toward my personal goals. Sometimes, the act of writing these concepts down makes me think about them clearly, causes them to move from the back of my mind to the front for a time. I used to have a structure, but mine are more free-form now. I do ...

I believe diary writing is to watch your thoughts. There are sure to be some which you cannot share with anyone but they build your perception on things. That nowhere mean its all about writing what you cannot share but all about composing thoughts and perceptions.For this reason in particular date and no. of pages does not matter as everything is ...

I use two methods - the basic, short term one is to mind map (I use Freemind, which is a free tool that works pretty well, but there are many like it) and add all aspects of the subject into the map, then I define linkages between them, which helps generate the flow, whether it be as an article for a newspaper or magazine, a presentation or a blog post. An ...

Try mind mapping. Write a selected topic in the middle of a sheet of paper, and add related topics around the center, joining them with lines to the central concept. This helps to gather topics related to the the central one, or to gather topics that are part of the central one. This has helped me to gather thoughts about writing posts, articles, and ...

Oftentimes when I'm preparing to write a larger article or even when I wrote my book, a high-level table of contents or outline is the best method. This tried and true process is great as it allows you to start very broad and then work down each item to provide more detail. It also allows you to re-order items easily since they are pretty much a type of ...

I use voice memos for this almost exclusively. I almost always have my phone (or tablet) with me. Neither is conducive to typing, but both have either EverNote, with both voice and voice-to-text notes, or general voice recognition, if I have connectivity. I find this substantially faster than either writing by hand (which I enjoy) or typing on either ...

You could carry your laptop around with you all the time. Okay, kidding. Do you have a smartphone, tablet or a similar device? You could use that, if the software has a version for your device. If not, you could either try finding a software/service that you can use with your portable device. But if you want to use your laptop for the writing, you could ...

Writing or "quantifying yourself" is a commonly used technique in cognitive behavioral therapy, so it definitely has its merits. For instance, if you have a sleeping problem, it is a good idea to note your sleeping patterns in a spreadsheet, to be able to get an objective view of the problem. This should apply to other problem types as well, such as ...

This is a great question. I attended a conference a while back where BJ Fogg presented (http://www.behaviormodel.org/) - my biggest takeaway, and one that changed my life - was to commit to doing something very small every day. Like write for 5 minutes - and assume that it will be something you throw away. By doing this - I get myself in the position to ...

You might simply need some motivation to keep writing. I have been using this site called 750 words (http://750words.com/about) from time to time to record random rants, but it has a system to give you "badges" when you have written on consecutive days. The site also runs interesting analytics (like, how often are you happy/sad/depressed, how many times you ...

Before I write at length on a topic I find it very helpful to set a goal for it. It's similar to a title but focuses more on what I want the reader to be left with at the end of it. The next step is to come up with very concise bulletpoints of how I think I can achieve that goal. What information is key to it. This is a combination of brainstorming and ...

All my answers on the productivity stackexchange are ridiculously biased, but I think the "One Must-Do Task of the Day" system works beautifully for this: http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2012/10/3/the-one-must-do-task-each-day.html That's from Mark Forster's Get Everything Done blog. The idea is to set up a commitment device where you always pick ...

Pomodoro is brilliant! That is a really simple tool. But... it's rather difficult to follow Pomodoro rules if you have to do some kind of conceptual or creative work. So I use Kanban. I also break tasks down into small parts. Then, I write each task on a card and put it on my board. You can choose between traditional (physical) and online board. I prefer ...

ALWAYS do the worst things in the morning then everything else seems much better through the day! Check out this interesting article on why its productive to do the dreaded things first thing in the morning. Eat The Frog!

While I appreciate your goal (most gain for best efficient use of time), I have found that the best tool is a combination of several tools, directed by a consciousness (metacognition) of how you're learning. You come to realize there are several aspects of typing: consistent speed, bursty typing, initial typing (vs being in the middle of a long paragraph), ...