Great question. Let me follow it up with another question:

With the way you write now, How few letters do you actually need to understand a word’s meaning?

• knee → N-Ē
• knight → N-Ī-T
• colonel → K-R-N-L

Longhand (how you are reading now) is full of unnecessary and duplicate sounds using different letters.

Consider F:

• F as in face
• Ph as in phase
• gh as in cough

This is why shorthand is easy to learn. In fact, shorthand is much easier to learn because there is only one way to write "F" sounds

Consider the following example: