One reason to keep a journal or a blog to capture your thoughts and lessons learned is to avoid the availability or recency bias. Presented in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, this bias tells us that the things that will come to mind are likely what has happened most recently. This is why your year end review at work will often focus on the work you’ve done in the last 3 months; it is the most memorable simply because it has happened most recently.

It is for this same reason that in Design Your Life the authors recommend keeping what they call a “Good Times Journal”. These journal entries consist of noting times when your day seems to be moving more quickly which helps to identify states of flow. Through this constant practice one would become more able to accurately describe activities, people, or environments they enjoy interacting with throughout the workday so when it comes time to find something new you are not just relying on your most recent positive experience.

Another strong argument for keeping a journal or blog is that you will not pass this way through life again, but someone else will. In order to give great insight into a place you have been before, whether that is to your children or a mentee, the best way to do it would be to remind you what it was like during that time – through your own documentation.

For me, this blog became a way to capture lessons learned. What will be your way?

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Notebook by Madeleine Bennett from the Noun Project