If you have ever come up with a great idea and didn’t even bother to write it down, you are an idiot. For the most part, your memory probably isn’t nearly as accurate as you think, and nine times out of ten, unless your brain has a reason to remember, you will almost undoubtedly forget. Meanwhile, how hard is it really to take out a pen and paper and scribble down some notes for a few seconds? Make it easier for yourself: write it down.
Well, from a scientific point of view, this is really how our memory works. Anything new that we learn goes into our short term memory, and if that memory is not reengaged at least a few times in succession, it will be forgotten. Think of it as pouring a pint of beer. You can keep pouring and pouring into that pint glass, but if you keep pouring more and more, some will spill out.
In the same way, we can only remember a finite amount of things in our short-term memory before things start to spill out. We need to reengage a certain memory 5 to 8 times before it goes into long-term memory. This is also the reason behind why we are so bad at remembering the names of people we have just met. The brain receives so much information from our surroundings throughout the day, that unless it deems it useful, it is not retained.
So if you have come up with an amazing business idea, or just any sort of idea in general, take a few seconds to write it down. It doesn’t take that long, and you will thank yourself when the time comes that you need it.
