Write It All Down
One of the phrases I’ll throw out there from time to time is this one: Capture everything, regret nothing.
This is one of the greatest lessons you can learn about personal productivity. Stop trying to remember things as much as you are.
Another phrase you’ll hear me say (or find I’ve written) is: Your mind was meant to be a factory, not a warehouse.
Let your brain do the processing work it’s best at. Stop making it search for things you’ve stored there as much as you do.
I write everything down — either in a notebook or on a mobile device — because I do not trust that I’ll be able to retain everything that comes to mind. So I capture everything without exception.
Even today, when I had to keep something in mind for longer than I’d like, I repeated it in my head until I could grab my notebook to get it out of my head.
Then as I wrote that thing down, something else came to mind: Because I write things down I don’t need to remember what I wrote down… just that I wrote something down. All I need to do is remember where I wrote it down. That’s a lot easier to do.
Write it all down. Seriously. Your mind and your future self will thank you for it.
