journalling is important

The act of writing down important things allows you to reflect on their significance and notice new connections or details that are not yet fully formed when still inside your head. Writing allows you to organize ideas and thoughts before sharing with another person (which I also think is very important).

Application 1: Daily/Near-Daily Reflections

Writing for somewhere between 2-10 minutes about anything every day in any form

• Ideally, these writings are all stored in the same place, but I do not think this is strictly necessary.
• The real exercise is getting comfortable expressing whatever thoughts are in your head and putting them on paper (real or proverbial) and allowing the writing to flow

In my thought-collecting system, these are my thoughts

I think this is important for several reasons.

1. it establishes a daily practice of noticing thoughts and writing them down
2. it serves as a "mind-cleanser" where thoughts inside your head are able to escape instead of bouncing around for the rest of the day
3. it allows you to go back and see what quick tidbits were at the forefront of your thoughts at different points in time ( this is where keeping all of your quick writings in the same place is useful )

Application 2: Summary of Learning

By actively writing things that you want to remember, you help yourself commit important things to memory. I like to write notes like i'm teaching someone else. I think this is particularly useful in an academic setting, but also in a more mundane day-to-day sense as well. The act of writing a summary forces you to concisely communicate the key ideas of something, which requires a deeper understanding than simply holding the knowledge or concept.

Application 3: Recording Reactions or Interactions

There are many times where we experience something - a book, a movie, a person/conversation - and afterwards have thoughts about that experience. I think it is useful to write down things you may have learned or thought about as a result of the experience.

• this allows you to "save" the thoughts and reactions that you had in relation to the external entity
• over time, you may be able to see patterns, which allow you to have a better understanding of yourself, how you think, and even choose your reactions
• physically recording your thoughts makes this process easier (again, this is where keeping track of things in a central location is useful)

Application 4: Synthesizing

Over time, your saved learning summaries, reactions, and daily tidbits will allow you to distill your thoughts into cohesive (or perhaps not-so-cohesive!) ideas. This helps you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, gaps in your knowledge, and thematic interests. By understanding these things, you are able to make more intentional decisions about the types of experiences you would like to have.

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