Have you ever tried to keep everything in your head instead of writing it down? If simply doesn’t work. Not to say that you can’t remember a lot of things, but keeping it all in your head will kill your productivity for sure.
You can end up forgetting something important, being distracted and focused on trying to remember something instead of focused on the task at hand, not to mention the feelings of anxiety it can bring.
To get those items off of your mind, utilize your time management tool. If you have a PDA or Smart Phone, enter that item in the memo pad feature and then at the end of the day move the notes from the memo pad to your task list or place it in your calendar if it’s going to take longer than 15 minutes to do.
If you use a paper system, jot it down on your task list or a pad of paper and move it to your task list at the end of the day or the next morning when you do your planning.
You can also use a voice recorder if you so, or a service like Jott that will transcribe your voice messages to yourslef into emails or text messages and send them to you, but what ever you do, make sure you make the notes in one place, not a number of different places. That will kill your productivity too. Get your to-do list out of your head and into your time management system.