How I Learned to Never Forget Anything

Remembering things is hard. The constant firehouse of information – especially if you’re a entrepreneur everything-is-a-potential-new-product-or-idea type – is overwhelming.

Here’s the secret to never forgetting anything: write it down. I’m not kidding, it’s that easy. Just follow these couple rules:

• Write it down right away. When you have the thought, or an action item is assigned to you, write it down right away. Don’t wait even a minute or two. In the moment, as the idea or action item is coming to mind, write it down.
• Don’t use paper. Some people would disagree with me here, but I believe this is crucial. Paper gets lost. Paper isn’t with you all of the time. You can’t edit paper. Paper isn’t backed up. If you like paper, make sure that you transcribe your notes into a digital cloud-based system that syncs with your phone and computer. I use Todoist for daily tasks and Trello for idea collection and project management. If it’s a recurring task, you can set these up to automatically appear in todoist.
• Write it down somewhere that you look at daily. Or Hourly. It’s important that wherever you record these ideas, thoughts, action items, etc is a place that your subconscious knows is safe. It has to be a place that you review on a disciplined schedule. You need to be able to trust the system that you are using to track your thoughts.