Keeping track of every item on your shopping, project and scheduling list in your head is a complete waste of your brain power.  Not to mention that awful sense of unease that you must be forgetting something …

Get it out of your head and into a single, trusted “inbox”. There only three requirements for a good inbox are:

• It must be with you at all times
• You always use it to accept input
• You always refer to it (this is the difficult bit!)

You see, your brain comes right on top when being auditioned against these three requirements.  It is just such a shame to waste such brain power on something the back of an envelope can do quite well.  Don’t waste time and energy memorizing your to-do list, and use something else as your trusted inbox.

Here are some options for a trusted inbox:

• A small notebook
• Your phone’s notes application
• Your answering machine: call and leave yourself notes  (could get expensive)

You could have multiple inboxes – just make sure you synchronize one a week or so.

Try it today: sit down and write down (into your inbox) all of the bits you have been trying to remember to keep track of – things that must be done early next week, the dentist appointment you must make, the phone number you promised to text to your neighbour, the dry cleaning that needs picking up …

Now sit back and feel good that you’ve captured it all, and you can happily forgive your memory if it lapses.

Bonus: when you cross an item off the list, the feel good factor is way higher than if you had not written it down in the first place