How can you identify the habits that are working for you and those that aren’t? How can you make sure that you are reinforcing your positive disciplines? If it isn’t apparent–if what you’re doing is happening in such small increments that you’re not sure if you’re on the right track–then you need to be writing it down. You need to keep a written record. You need to write down everything that may be relevant from each day: what you did, who you saw, what you feel, how it may or may not affect you now and in the future.
The best way to track your activities of the day is to write them down. The best way to track your activities of the week is to write them down. The best way to analyze your progress through the year is to have written it down. Why? So you can look back at your notes. Because by keeping a written record of your life, you will be more accountable. By putting into writing the steps that you have planned, you will easily see what works and what doesn’t.
There’s something magical in identifying a problem. As soon as you start writing it out, you start figuring out ways to make it work. Perhaps the magic is that when you write it down, you can now be objective. You can start to objectively see where you fit into the picture. You can start to see if you are being responsible and self-reliant. You are pondering all the relevant facts. You are trying to figure it all out. The fact that it is now on paper actually creates a space between you and the problem. And in this space that you have created, new solutions have room to grow. You see, writing about events that occur helps you to understand exactly what is happening. When you describe life to yourself only in your mind, your imagination tends to feed back false information about how things really are. You may be working with distorted information.
If you keep the information just in your mind, your creativity can create scenarios that really don’t exist at all. But by writing it all down, you now can become more factual, more accurate, more realistic, more logical. Then as you reread what you have written, you create new pictures in your mind. Once you see things as they are, rather than how you think they are, you can see how to make them better.
It’s all part of being responsible. It’s all part of seeing things objectively to fully understand the steps that you must take to make things better, to better prepare yourself for the opportunities that lie ahead.
* Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn