Arjun Khemani

You may have heard this at least once if not myriad times in your life that- “you should write it down”. ‘it’ can refer to anything ranging from your goals, thoughts and ideas or a documentation and record of your day. It’s pretty much a cliché now (and annoying, sometimes) but it is, as a matter of fact, really important to do. Here’s why:

Writing it down, especially your “million-dollar” ideas is an immensely important task that takes less than two minutes to do. There must have been so many times—at least there have been instances with me—when I get a great idea, and then I forget it because I didn’t write it down. Just an incident about yesterday, I got an amazing idea for an article here at my blog. As per the principles of my great habit, I opened up the Notes page on my computer to write it down. But, I saw that my iCloud storage was almost full. So I went and deleted some photos and unnecessary clutter from my storage. By the time I came back to the Notes page on my computer, I had forgotten the article idea. I just couldn’t seem to remember it. (Anyone who has ever forgotten a great idea knows what this feels like) And that was a little disappointing since I knew that that topic which I had an idea to write upon was a brilliant one and I could write a lot on it. Alas, I couldn’t remember it. That’s when I decided that I should write an article about the importance of writing down. So I wrote this one.
P.S. – I still can’t seem to remember that original article idea 😦

The strange thing about that story is that I’d even planned on writing the idea down, but due to some small obstacle in my way, I forgot it in like less than half and hour. That’s just a little bit of bad luck.

The thing about writing down that intrigues me the most is that most of the time really, when I write something down, the next day I don’t even need to look for where I wrote that idea down. Because I remember what I had written, no need to even see the note again. This only happens when I write down the thing. It’s odd, but hey it works! Writing down helps on two very significant ranks—Physical (you can access the paper or digital copy on which you’ve written down your idea at any time you like) and psychologically (writing down makes the message stick to your brain better.) Writing it down makes you create. Neuropsychologists call it the generation effect. When you get your next idea or goal, it’s likely that you’ve gotten struck by it from something that you saw or read at the moment. Writing it down makes you generate your own part of the idea and encodes the message better in your mind.

Countless studies even suggest that writing down your goals is important and provides for a stronger likelihood of it’s achievement.

Sometimes, we think we have sharp minds and will easily remember such an important idea that we have created. I mean how can we ever forget it, right? But there’s still a chance for us, as human beings, to forget about it. So why take that chance which has a small probability of occurrence but such a huge severity of impact. Write it down to keep a back up (just in case) and also to allow the brain to remember the idea well enough so that to keep it comprehended without even needing to see the paper on which you’ve written the idea again. Besides, it only takes two minutes, or less. You don’t have to write down a whole manuscript or plan. Just write down your idea in one sentence and if you wish to, take two sentences to briefly give a meaning to the idea. That’s it. The brain will take care of the rest.

Just write it down.