Picture this: You sit down at a restaurant, looking forward to a great dining experience. You are very, very hungry. You are also a picky eater. If a mushroom, onion or tomato touches your food, it is ruined.

You place your very specific order. There’s a number of people in your party. The server doesn’t write anything down.

You wait what seems like forever for the food to be served, and when it finally arrives, you realize… your order is wrong.

How annoying is that?!

I’m not super picky, but with certain foods, I’m very particular. For example, I don’t prefer red meat to be well done. So I appreciate when servers take the time to listen, write my order down and get it right.

I understand that there are those 5 percent of servers that can just remember and almost never get it wrong. But I’ve always thought, Why not just write it down? What is the downside to writing it down?

Cycle of Inspiration

At a young age, I was taught the concept of the Cycle of Inspiration, which could honestly apply to any type of learning. As you receive an idea, thought, prompting or inspiration, write it down. The likelihood of actually acting on the idea goes up exponentially when you write it down.

I’m sure we’ve all had conversations where the original thought comes back around. We may say out loud, “I had that thought last week/last month/last year.” But since it wasn’t written down, it never got done or put into motion.

A clarity break is possibly one version of the concept of writing things down. But I would encourage you to write things down all the time, not just one time per week.

Mentorship

I’ve had the opportunity to mentor many people over the last 20 years. Not many things frustrate me more than when someone is looking for advice, and then they don’t write any of it down. At that moment, I feel like I’m sitting at the restaurant and thinking to myself, “Yep, they’re going to get my order wrong.”

Just like that special server with the incredible memory, I am actually surprised when, in the follow up, my mentees actually get it done. When someone doesn’t write it down, I expect them to forget. I’m sure that sounds harsh, but I’m definitely not the only one who feels this way.

If you have ever been to a seminar where people are paying thousands of dollars to attend, you’ll see everyone write down their thoughts, impressions and action items.

In short, if you want to be more successful, write it down.