David Allen, author of the best-selling Getting Things Done, shared some of his best productivity tips during a recent episode of the Becoming Better podcast. You can read a summary here, or listen to the full episode here. My favorite takeaway:
Your head is for having ideas, not holding them. Our brains can only hold so much. The more tasks, to-do’s, deadlines, etc. that you store in your head, the more you’re depleting a finite resource, and the less brainpower you’ll have available for other more creative or challenging things. So just write it down. Appointments, assignments, dates and deadlines–anything at all that can be written down instead of committed to memory, get it out of your head and onto the calendar, page, or other system.
You might be able to free up time, energy, and intellectual power just by relying less on your memory.