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Write It Down

Neither a brilliant idea nor a humdrum task exists for me if I don't write it down.



Image: sticky note


I keep a pad of sticky notes in almost every room of my house and in my car as well. I never know when an idea will come to me, and past experience has proven that if I don't write it down immediately, I will lose it forever. Or at least until after I've already returned from the grocery store.


I own small notes, square notes, rectangular notes, tab notes, colorful notes, lined notes, transparent notes. The one type of note I don't have is waterproof, so I have to repeat the thing to myself over and over until I can get out of the shower to write it down. Fortunately, I keep sticky notes on the bathroom counter.


Even if your struggle is not this type of short-term memory fizzle, get in the habit of writing things down (even if that means on a keyboard and not a sticky note). But if something is important, go one step farther and write it down in two places.


You may think this is unnecessary. Allow me to change your mind.


In 2011, Stefan Thomas wrote down his password to access his 7,000 in bitcoin, worth about $250 million in today's money. Awesome, right? Wrong! Stefan lost the password! And he has used up eight guesses, leaving only two more before his $$$$ is lost to him forever, like a very personal, specific, irredeemable repeat of the 1929 stock market crash! Read about the saga here.


I understand bupkis about crypto currency. But I do understand how devastating information loss can be.


Those of us who have gone through a hard drive crash (or, like me, more than one: woot woot to my big loser peeps!) may seem a little insane when we save stuff to our Google drive, One Drive, jump drive, hard drive, and—in the case of vitally important things like oh I dunno memoir-manuscripts-in-progress or bitcoin passwords—on paper.


But when the full coffee cup gets knocked over or just two passwords remain, we'll be the ones left standing.




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