Write It Down

Years ago, I jotted notes, doodled on a wire bound notebook. 

No big deal, but I was a terrible writer; got C’s in grammar (and by the grace of God, may I add). Truth was that I couldn’t write a decent sentence to save my life; but despite this handicap, I collected a huge box of these note books and journals. 

 On occasion, I’d pick one up, and funny thing, some of these journals were over 30 years old and remembered when, where, and why I wrote on them.

It proved how important it was to keep a journal even if the contents were terribly embarrassing and illegible.

I’ve done research, of course on the Internet and found that keeping a journal free hand, albeit illegible, benefited over those that typed. Arguably, the computer or any electronic device had features like spell and grammar check, word searches, phrases at the blink of an eye.

And fast? You bet. Way faster than writing long hand, and so much cleaner. 

Downside was disassociation. 

It was like the guy on television, throwing a chicken in a portable oven and saying, “put it in and forget about it.” 

Typing,” did not help me remember. 

With the article not in front of me, a study suggested that those who wrote notes, freehand, on a pad had better recollection than those who typed though those, who used a keyboard, captured, considerably, more notes. It was even noted that a person, who doodled or wrote one word on a page, recollected better than those who typed pages of notes. 

On occasion, during those moments of inspiration, I’d write quickly and typed after speed writing long hand. This process worked for me, as in the past when I faced a blank screen, I ended up with writers block.

I examined journals of many types and recognized their uses. They were as different as you can imagine with rules and no rules. I saw one example that logged words on pages, sequences and verses that made no sense, written without consideration of any sentence structure. He penned expressions whether it made sense or not. 

On the other hand, I used complete sentences (at least I tried) for future references, others to read and appreciate. I would break it up with pictures, outlines, mind maps, with some purpose like what I saw on the news, the score between two teams, a 1-800 number, website address, weather report, something I learned. 

The reasons were endless. Important at the time? Definitely. Important later on? Perhaps. 

Would I have remembered this information had I not written it down? Most likely not. Would I be able to use them to pen a novel or non-fiction book later on? Let me put it this way. Like what Yul Brynner, who played Pharaoh in the movie “Ten Commandments,” said, “So shall it be written, so shall it be done.”

Since high school, probably because I took an inordinate sum of headshots playing football at 125 lbs. against cape buffalos smashing against my defenseless body, I was not good at remembering things, and I learned to write things down: on a pad, discarded napkin, sandwich bag, side of a newspaper, whatever available; and unless I wrote things down, nothing stuck. 

Years ago, I could have taken classes and taught myself better memory. I learned, through all these years that simply writing things down served a lifelong purpose of recollection.

How simple is that? 

Keeping a journal is as good as it gets.

So for goodness sake…write it down!