The pen is mightier than the brain

Watch any team work together. If it looks like they’re usually on the same page, that’s not accidental. It’s probably because they’ve learned how to write things down.

The simple habit of writing things down is woefully underrated.

In your personal life it helps too. There’s nothing that drives me up the wall more than not being able to find information I need. Writing things down means when I need my kids’ passport numbers or my car’s VIN number, I’ve got it.

I’ve been learning a lot about writing in general from David Perell of writeofpassage.school. He explains it this way:

“Writing helps you remember your best ideas. Words on a page have infinite patience. And when you come back to them, you can improve them.”

Teams who rely on oral tradition are asking for trouble. It creates something even worse than key man dependency. It creates fallible memory dependency. Recent research has shown that human memory is far less trustworthy than most of us realize.

So creating a team culture or habit of writing things down helps in these ways:

1. Gets people on the same page.
2. Gives you a way to improve ideas and understanding over time.
3. Guards against weak memories letting you down.