Note: This post is recycled from my early years of blogging but, I think, still relevant. Hope you enjoy it.
How often do you actually write something by hand, other than a grocery list—some well-organized souls have been known to use Outlook Tasks or their phones for that purpose—or a sticky note?
I was meditating on the power of the (hand) written word the other day, as I finished a letter to my stepmother in Virginia. And whaddya know, the cool women at Connext have been thinking about the same thing. (Note: Connext was formerly High Tech Connect.)
As they note, it’s getting harder and harder to find the occasion to hand-write anything, given the ubiquity of email and texting, but nothing has greater impact than a hand-written, and therefore truly personal, communication. My sister-in-law just sent me a thank-you for her birthday check and took the time to indulge in a little epistolary chat about how she would spend the money. A client recently mailed a lovely note thanking me for my help and saying how much she had enjoyed working together. No doubt an email from her would also have felt great, but her note was like the maraschino cherry garnishing the whipped cream on top of an Irish Coffee.
No matter how lousy or crabbed your handwriting is—and mine wins no prizes—there are some communications for which there is NO substitute for seizing a pen and getting down to work. In the words of Sound Bytes, the High Tech Connect newsletter, “Want to make a real impression on someone today? WRITE them a note.”
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