Writing every day for 365 days, I’ve learned that I remember better what I have written.

By writing or recording notes every day I am better at remembering the context of my experiences and my memories.

Especially when I listen back to voice recordings, I remember a lot of things: my mood, what was happening, what lead me to those thoughts but, more interestingly, I remember where I was and what was occurring around me.

I feel like my previous life, the one in which I was not journaling, is a distant one. While the written memories have a chance to become a vivid experience when I read them, the previous physiological memory seems to be less powerful, less rich, less real.

I feel something like nostalgia and frustration for memories that I have not captured. I have a lot of photographs, a lot of them, but I don’t have a lot of written notes.

Now that I think about it: I have many written notes but on fleeting sheets of papers and most of them are lost or buried who knows where. One reason more to write your notes and keep them in a permanent medium.

Connect your brain to a more vivid past. Leverage on your rich memories: write them down.

This is Essay 8 of 30 in the my challenge One Year Writing: 30 Lessons Learned in 30 Days

1. The Journey is the Purpose (16 Nov 2020)
2. Writing is Thinking (17 Nov 2020)
3. Write a Lot to Write Well (18 Nov 2020)
4. Creative Loneliness (19 Nov 2020)
5. Be Less Ambitious, Be More Consistent (20 Nov 2020)
6. Writing builds your networks (21 Nov 2020)
7. Connect ideas now (22 Nov 2020)
8. Writing improves your memory (23 Nov 2020)
9. Writing makes you a better observer (24 Nov 2020)
10. Writing sets the focus on yourself (25 Nov 2020)
11. Dissolve your distractions (26 Nov 2020)
12. Writing reduces your jargon and slang (27 Nov 2020)
13. Walking generates ideas (28 Nov 2020)
14. Writing is like drinking coffee (29 Nov 2020)
15. Creativity makes you happy (30 Nov 2020)
16. Be smart, let it go (1 Dec 2020)
17. Writing is a process (2 Dec 2020)
18. Automate repetitive tasks (3 Dec 2020)
19. Publish text as digital text, not images (4 Dec 2020)
20. Why asking questions? (5 Dec 2020)
21. Facilitate growth by tracking habits (6 Dec 2020)
22. Type more, type faster, type better (7 Dec 2020)
23. Transcribe your thoughts to become an effective communicator (8 Dec 2020)
24. Write daily to become a better manager (9 Dec 2020)
25. Do it small to do it better (10 Dec 2020)
26. Don’t lose your mind. Back it up (11 Dec 2020)
27. Write daily to enhance your reality (12 Dec 2020)
28. If only I could be ten, again (13 Dec 2020)
29. Writing compounds despite everything (14 Dec 2020)
30. The habit of building habits (15 Dec 2020)