JS Tip 206: From the Time Management Workshops: Write It Down

It’s easy to forget things.

It’s easy to become distracted.

Write things down.

Use a 3x5 file card.

Use a sticky note.  

Use a notebook or planner.

Use an Excel spreadsheet and name it “Tasks.” Keep it on your computer desktop. Add new tasks as they come to you. Gray-out completed tasks and move them down the list. Highlight critical tasks in red.

If you have to, write things on your hand. You’ll be organized as long as you don’t bathe.

Some Background

In Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, Pharaoh Rameses (Yul Brynner) commands, “So let it be written, so let it be done.”

Ask yourself, “What’s the relationship between the writing and the doing?” The writing precedes and encourages the doing.

A critical principle of nursing is “If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen.”

An old family proverb is “A short pencil is better than a long memory.”

Writing has permanence.  

If you have comments, suggestions, or arguments, let us know. We love this stuff.