How to (hand) write Chinese characters faster
In restaurants (茶餐廳) in Hong Kong, the "waiters" also face this problem because writing in a formal and clear way takes too much time. They developed methods so that they can take orders faster:


Write words with other words that has the same pronunciation.
For example, instead of writing the word 「飯」(faan6), they would write 「反」(faan2) because they both have similar pronunciations.
Draw symbols instead of words.
Instead of writing 「叉燒」, writing 「╳燒」takes less time and is still readable.
Try to write with less strokes. Instead of writing a stroke by another, try this:

Use a mixture of Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese: (applies to people who are outside of mainland China, mainly for users of Traditional Chinese)
Eg: 我是一個好学生。