The Power of Writing for you…

“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”

Francis Bacon

In today’s blog I wanted to focus in on the power of writing things down! In a world filled with technology, it is often easy to dismiss such a simple, yet powerful act.

To begin, if you are feeling overwhelmed right now… take a moment to list down everything you have on your mind. For me, this allows an immediate sense of relief as simply ‘thinking’ all these things is enough to make me feel stressed.

While information, tasks, distractions, and responsibilities keep increasing, the space in our brains and the number of hours we have in our days remain the same and it can lead to feelings of overwhelm.  Writing things down is a simple yet powerful way to record everything that has your attention.

The email you must send to your lecturer, the appointment you need to attend, the milk that you need to pick up for your flat mate

Writing things down allows you to establish some control. For example, in our planner we have created our ‘focused few’, which is about identifying your main tasks for each day and allows you to immediately take ownership.

It must be said though that writing things down does not need to be limited to lists. I often have random/crazy/spur of the moment ideas and by having my planner handy I can use my Semester open space to jot them down. Not all ideas will be utilised, but I certainly do not want them going to waste or to be lost forever.

Getting your general thoughts down on paper is another form of journaling and by writing them down it can help you establish thought patterns. It helps you identify reoccurring thoughts that may be powerful and serve you, or reoccurring thoughts which are not serving you, which can instead be dismissed.  ‘Therapeutic writing’ is a term given to describe writing your feelings and is said to be hugely beneficial to wellbeing.

Writing things down helps you overcome problems and challenges, within our Semester Personal Growth Handbook (coming soon) we offer lots of coaching resources to help with this. Often described as ‘rock to resolution’, writing down what a problem is allows you to think of steps or actions to address it, which helps to diffuse the problems power and get your creative juices flowing.

One of our #growth hacks in our planner is about ‘brain dumping’ and this is great when you feel as if your head is going to explode with thoughts, ideas, or even worries or anxieties… it is about getting everything out on paper.

There are so many examples of where writing things down serves us, for example, by simply writing down your schedule in your daily planner, it allows you to stay ahead and effectively manage your time.

Writing things down helps with achieving your goals! Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, recently studied the art and science of goal setting. She found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.  The explanation has to do with the way our brains work. Our brain has a left and a right hemisphere, if you only think about goals or dreams, you’re only using the right hemisphere of your brain, which is your imaginative centre. However, if you think about something that you desire, and then write it down, you also tap into the power of your logic-based left hemisphere. Writing goals down gives you clarity and focus, it helps concentrates your efforts and gives you a daily reminder of your mission.

“Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; cant’s into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don’t just think it – ink it!”  

Michael Korda

There are so many examples. Writing something to be grateful for each day is said to significantly improve our wellbeing.

Writing things down can provide motivation. One of the elements of the Semester Planner is our ‘daily wins’ which allows us to reflect on the good and can highlight your progress.

I could list many more, but I feel the point has been made. To conclude, we encourage you to drop the technology for while and make sure you rediscover the power of a pen and paper!

Keep your eyes peels for the launch of our planner coming this January! here you can personally start seeing the power of the examples listed above.

(To find out more details on the upcoming launch subscribe below!)

#LetsGrowTogether 🎯