Good point. It's just a lazy habit on my laptop I guess.
Use +w +x +r (Writable/Exec/Readable by user) and -w -x -r instead of octal. It's shorter and more secure!
(You can also prefix with u a or g, e.g. chmod a+x, for user, all, and group, respectively.)
Why is it more secure? Because it is less error prone?