Want To Get Things Done? Write It Down

Want To Get Things Done? Write It Down

[1]

If you are looking for to do list software, you have a myriad of
options to choose from. Some of the most well regarded to do list
managers floating around the Internet are Remember the Milk, Toodledo,
Google Calendar's Task list, and Ta-Da List. Each of them seems to
have a gadget that you can integrate into your web browser or into an
iGoogle page so that you can see your to do list at regular intervals
as you work at your computer.

If it's so convenient, why can't I recommend some such system?

I love technology and gadgets. But digitizing this particular function
--- I just don't have the heart for it. Personally, I find that I need
to write my to do lists. I enjoy the feeling of physically crossing
things off my list on a piece of paper. I've experimented with
different kinds of to do lists. There's the simple master list that
holds everything. There's the approach of making different lists for
each day of the week and categorizing tasks according to when they
must be done. Most recently, I've experimented with the GTD (Getting
Things Done) system of using context-based lists, such as @phone,
@email, @ car, @home, @travel, etc. Even that system is customized
based on the assumption that everyone will want to digitize their
lists --- hence the @ symbol, which is partially intended to pull the
to do list to the top of an electronic folder that is organized
alphabetically.

But I don't put my context lists on my computer, my phone, or my iPad.
I write them on sheets of paper and file them in a three-ring binder.
Why?

It just is so much more effective for me to write things down on a
physical list. I didn't know why, so I looked it up. It turns out that
the act of physically writing causes chemical changes in the brain ---
my brain, your brain, anyone's brain. Here's why:

*1. Storing memories in more than one way helps us to remember.* When
I write something down on my to do list, I store it, in a sense, in
two ways --- visually and kinesthetically, by using the muscles in my
arm, hand, and fingers to write. If I read the list out loud to
myself, I've now stored in it in two more ways, by speaking and
listening. I am now far less likely to forget the items on my list. If
I store the list in my computer, even if I then migrate it to my
phone, I still am storing it in just one way, as letters on a screen
--- eminently forgettable.

*2. Reading and writing rewires our brains.* Neurologists are
beginning to realize that adult brains are far more plastic, and more
similar to the brains of children, than we commonly assume. Far from
being set in stone, our brains are changing and evolving all the time,
as we, like our children, learn new things. Studies of what happens in
children's brains, as they read and write, may well apply to us adults
as well, and to what happens in our brains when we read and write.

Neurologists are just beginning to use brain imaging studies to find
out what happens in a child's brain during the process of becoming
literate. It turns out that the quality of the brain's white matter
--- the tissue that carries signals between areas of gray matter ---
improves substantially when children learn to read --- a process that
typically occurs side by side with learning to write. (See, for
example, ìFirst evidence of brain rewiring in children: reading
remediation positively alters brain tissue,î Science Daily, Dec. 10,
2009,

When children learn to write in cursive, other things happen in the
brain. The translation of the sequences of symbols (letters) into
lines on paper affects the cognitive ability of the brain --- it
presents the brain with a challenge because each letter connects
slightly different to every other letter each time that it is written.
Neuroscientists say that as children learn to write cursive, they
become better speakers and readers. Writing in cursive, but not
printing, does this --- so maybe it's best to write that to do list in
cursive. I certainly do!

But it's not just the act of writing that affects the brain. Reading
cursive handwriting --- our own or anyone else's --- uses the same
part of the brain that recognizes faces --- and we can have an
emotional response to handwriting, just as we can to a face. Looking
at handwriting activates in the brain a process called a 'memory
trace' a biochemical change that causes a domino effect (if you'll
forgive my mixing of metaphors) throughout the rest of the brain,
setting off other memories. That means that simply seeing an item that
I wrote on a to do list can trigger a whole chain reaction of other
memories related to that item and what I was thinking and feeling when
I wrote it. No wonder a physical handwritten to do list seems so much
more meaningful to me! I just can't get the same satisfaction from
clicking a box on a computer screen.

Perhaps my final reason for preferring writing on paper is frivolous,
but here goes:

*3. Writing with a good pen on good paper is physically pleasurable
--- it adds a moment of pure enjoyment to a day that may be filled
with otherwise mundane tasks.* As Toronto reporter Andrea Gordon puts
it, 'I luxuriate in feeling the pen on paper the way a cook relishes
sticky dough on his fingers.' (Gordon, Andrea. 'The death of
handwriting' Parentcentral.ca. Dec. 10, 2009.

Art Decker is a division manager with Self Storage Company, which
operates a group of websites, including a Maryland self storage [2]
locator. Art leads a busy life and often travels between sites, like
from Texas to the Florida self storage site. As a result, Art has
developed a strong interest in topics such as productivity,
organization, working while traveling, balancing work and home life,
and reducing stress.

_Don't Forget to Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter! [3]_

*_Related Articles:_*
_14 Ways To Procrastinate Productively [4]_

Links:
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[1] http://bemoreconfident.info/wp-content/blogs.dir/22/files/HLIC/1d534570e04327f41022106a4f1030c4.jpg
[2] http://www.marylandstorage.com/
[3] http://twitter.com/pickthebrain
[4] http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/14-ways-to-procrastinate-productively/