Write Things Down!

“The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.”

Albert Einstein was once asked by his student…Professor Einstein, can I get your telephone number?

Einstein reached inside his bag, took out his telephone directory, turned it to the letter E, dictated his name Einstein, and gave his telephone number.

The student gasped, Professor Einstein, you know all the formulas in the world and yet you don’t know your telephone number? To which Einstein replied: Young man, if you write things down, you free your mind.

How many times did you have a grand idea that you instantly forget simply because you didn’t write it down. Or how many times have you attended a seminar with no paper and pen on hand to take notes (Today, it’s an iPad — usually not to take notes but to take pictures of the slides. So I guess you can use a camera too), only to forget everything discussed the next day.

I have attended seminars more than 10 years ago that I can still vividly recall — I remember the speaker, his main points, even the venue and the date of the event — because I wrote it down. In fact, I heard this Einstein story more than a decade ago.

Write things down! It may sound common sense, but it is not common practice.