Write Stuff Down!

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

Bettering yourself is the result of thousands of tiny choices. Those small choices need to be visible to you, to have sticking power. A choice in the hand is worth two in the bush. Once you decide what to do, you should write it down immediately somewhere you can see it.

Writing down your goals gives you several major advantages. First, writing down your goals helps you work through which goals are important and in accordance with your life. Second, writing down goals means you don’t need to remember them, or spend as much time thinking about them. Finally, writing down goals helps you to commit to seeing them through, especially publicly.

The first benefit is that that writing down your goals helps you determine which goals are important. This is because writing is a good way of organizing your thinking. Is this goal compatible with that goal? When it’s in front of you, it’s easy to tell whether you are sticking with your other values and priorities.

The second reason why it’s so good is because oftentimes there’s a lot of competing priorities you have to think about. Not having to keep these all in your head is a great way of achieving more goals. The act of writing things down helps you to remember it, and in a sense, your planner can become like an external brain, where your thoughts are transcribed and easily retrievable, regardless of if you’ve had your first coffee.

Though, the best reason to write down your goals is because it makes it a lot easier to stick to them, because you’re in effect making a reputational bet on whether you’re getting it done. If your friends know you’re trying to do something, it’s hard to backtrack out of it. Writing things down is so effective at persuasion, that China made political prisoners write down renouncing the US for small rewards, and often converted soldiers to communism.