Write to Remember

African Elephant by Terri Williams

There are many reasons to write a blog: the desire to share, to contribute to a community, to attract visitors to a site and to optimize search rankings. I have an additional reason: writing helps me to remember.

In any week, I see thousands of emails, tweets and status updates. I take the time to read dozens of reports and articles in their entirety. When I am in the car, I am listening to an audio book. The result can be a muddy mixture of disjointed facts that appear to be unrelated.

Writing this blog helps distill those facts into recognizable patterns. Before I can write a coherent sentence, I have to form a coherent thesis. Incomplete or questionable parts of the thesis need to be researched and confirmed. This process of organizing my thoughts both clarifies and reinforces the memories.

What techniques do you use to remember?

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