There are two key questions:

1. Is it legible to you?
2. Do others read your notes?

If you can't instantly decipher what you've written, then you're wasting some time. Instead of aiming to "perfect" your handwriting, a more useful goal would be to get it to the point where you can comprehend what you've written without issue.

The above applies if you're the only person who reads your notes. If there are others who need to interpret your handwriting, then you are going to be wasting time explaining what you've written, and that implies a drop in productivity. If nobody else reads what you've written, then that issue is negligible.

It's said that clear handwriting leads to clear thought, so that's another incentive to write clearly, but this endeavor has diminishing marginal utility. After a certain point, the effort you put into improving your penmanship will not truly affect comprehension or anything other than aesthetic factors, and at that point you are "done".

The answer to your question is Yes and No, according to the context of your work and definition of your goal. Let me elaborate:

• Yes:

  • If you have lots of tasks that involve writing on paper, such as essays that are evaluated.
  • If you want to keep an example of good penmanship before your kids or friends.
  • If you have to take notes from lectures and you do not have access to an iPad or other voice recorder.

  Then you may want to practice the skill to make them readable for a long time and keep them looking good for others.

• No

  • If all you want is to be productive, and writing on paper is not an essential thing for you.

  I have not written a single word other than a 'sign' on paper since last 10 years due to technology advancements, and yet I believe I am productive enough. I write reports and emails, take notes, produce movies and documentaries—I even write poetry—all on my MacBook at home and some form of PC in the office.

I am writing this here for the record as I believe there may be many more like me in the world and hence this can become a representative answer for such people.

So is there any potential value, productivity-wise, in taking the time to re-acquire this increasingly anachronistic grammar-school skill?

This suggests to me you already have some bias against improving your handwriting.

One of the questions that no one appears to have asked you is this: how would you measure your productivity gains if you put the work into making your handwriting more legible? And it's not clear to me how many people other than your wife, for example, have cause to try and decipher your handwriting.

I know for myself, for example, most handwriting that I do is in my worktracker book, which only I read, and the odd phone message left on people's desks. But occasionally I have to whiteboard stuff and there, it is important that people can read my writing quickly and easily.

Do you write a lot? If you do, I'd put some effort into making it legible. If not then...I'm not so sure you really care because like I said above, you already lean against the value of the effort.

Do you write more than you type? If not, focusing on your typing speed seems fine. Just bring a computer or iPad to meetings. If you do write a lot, learning/creating your own abbreviation system could help. Writing less characters means being less rushed to write them sloppily.

That said, my handwriting has gotten steadily worse over time. I find myself writing slower and more clearly if I am writing somewhere else and scrawling if it just for me.

Me, I keep a keyboard nearby. Failing that I carry a voice recorder and transcribe later. If what you have works for you then there's probably no need to go to the hassle of re-learning the skill. Myself, I have two young children and I'm thinking about fixing up my handwriting as they are giving me grief about my horrible chicken-scratch script.