I know it is not efficient or even very “productive” to write my notes by hand or write comments on student papers by hand, but every time I sit down to do my teaching work, I find myself drawn to writing things out with pen and paper.

Right now I’m reading through beginning-of-the-semester student surveys, and instead of recording the data on a Google doc or whatever, I find myself writing the notes on yellow legal pads, my trusty Pilot G-2 pen in my hand.

It’s definitely slower, doing it by hand. I’ll eventually type up some of this info and share the results with the class, so why waste my time handwriting it out first?

I asked myself the same question as I sat down to work, and I don’t know why, but I simply felt compelled to do it by hand. For some reason, this first go-round with the surveys feels like it should be done in analog. Read the surveys, write the answers on my legal pad, put the words down with my own pen strokes, hold the survey notecards in my hands, draw boxes and lines and asterisks on the paper.

When I think about doing the work straight onto the computer, something in me recoils. The work seems less pleasant. More drudgery.

But when I think about sitting at my desk, pen in hand, moving it quickly (or sometimes slowly) across the page, I feel good. I feel excited, energized, drawn to the materials. I want to begin my work.

I’m sure this is crazy. But it’s how I feel. And sitting down to do my teaching work can often be a struggle. I face a lot of internal resistance. Often, the only way I can overcome that resistance is to do the work by hand and tell myself there is no rush.

Of course, the volume of paperwork, of essays and reading journals and the like, means that taking things slowly means I spend hours at my desk. It means I don’t have time for other things.

This rankles me, of course, because I don’t want to spend all my time doing job-related work, but I also find that it’s the only way I can compel myself to do the work in the first place. The computer promises speed, but I rebel against the experience of using it. On some level, it unmoors me. And thus a conundrum arises: do the work “faster” but less pleasurably on the computer, feel more resistance and spend more time procrastinating OR do the work slower by hand, feel less resistance (even eagerness) and spend more time actually doing the work.

Either way, I probably spend more time than I’d like doing work for my job.

I’m simply a slow worker. Slow thinker, slow worker. But this slowness is a benefit. My work is better, and even more importantly, more pleasurable.

For now, I’m going to take it slowly. I’m going to record these survey answers by hand. I’m going to use this time to connect to my students’ answers, and when I type up some to share with the whole class, I’ll have a chance to re-encounter the data by going through it a second time. Maybe I’ll have new insights. Maybe the information will sink in more deeply. Maybe this typing up phase will give me another chance to contemplate my students’ answers.

It’s madness, but it’s the only way of working that makes sense to me.

Go slow. Write by hand. Mull it over. Spend time with it. No rush.

It’s the method that gets me to the desk to work. And that’s what counts.