As I was writing out the title I realized, this is odd, Jess. You’re a self-described technophile, yet you keep pushing writing with an actual pen and paper. What gives? This is true, but one thing I’ve been forced to accept about myself is there is something different about writing down on paper. Somehow my brain thinks it’s more legit. Part of me resents that because I want to live my life completely in technology (why I don’t know), but it’s just the way I am and so I’ve come to accept it. I write things down and then digitize them by taking pictures and sending them to Evernote. Somethings, though, just stay on paper.
Creativesomething.net has these great reasons why you should actually write things down. In the spirit of the journal giveaway week, I wanted to share them with you. See the whole article here.
Writing down your ideas makes them nearly impossible to forget.
Sure, you could rip out the page you write your idea on, or you could lose your idea notebook, but writing down your idea is a pretty certain guarantee that you won’t forget it later. Even if the idea seems pointless or stupid at the time you think it up, you may want to recall it later, and if you don’t write it down somewhere… you probably won’t ever remember.
Writing down your ideas makes them more than just ideas.
An idea is just a mental thought, until it is written (or typed) down. Writing down your ideas takes them from being just a thought, into being a real, feasible idea. In this way the creative ideas you have also become expandable; you will be able to physically see the idea, rather than just imagining it in your mind (seeing is believing). Being able to see your idea is the very first step in acting on that idea.
Writing down your ideas puts them all in one place.
If you find yourself bombarded with a lot of creative ideas often (or if you’re a creative professional), writing your ideas down in an “idea notebook” makes it easy to keep track of your ideas. An idea notebook means you always know where to look when you want to recall an idea (or when you need some creative inspiration). Don’t want to buy a notebook? Then try to collect all of your ideas on your computer or in a pile of scrap paper. Anything to put your ideas all into one, easy to find place.
Writing down your ideas makes it easier to think up new ones.
Once you are in the habit of writing your ideas down, you’ll quickly develop a knack for thinking up, and tracking, ideas. Before you know it you will have notebooks full of great ideas. The more you write the more you will have to write about.
Try and discover ways in your everyday activity to keep track of your ideas until you can get them together in one place and in one format.
I really buy into #1. There’s something about closing loops in my brain that just works when I write ideas down. But then I have to go back and review them in order to put them into action.
How about you? Do you need to write things down like to-do lists etc? What things have you kept on paper and what things have you moved digital? You can comment by clicking here.
I’ve had a few people text me and leave comments to congratulate me on starting to run. I’ve also had people tell me I’m crazy for doing both at the same time, which is not all that far off, perhaps. Aside from being sick last week and this week which affected my runs, things have been going well. I managed to desire to get up and go, but just take it a little easier, which has been good.
Two blogs I follow that have been helpful for both productivity and goal achievement are 