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By Star Dust

I claim to be a “writer,” which means I sit around all day with a tortured look on my face, use big words no one else understands, and obsess about how I keep losing my pens all the time. But there are more practical ways to use writing. Even you—yes, you—can use writing to improve your life. Yes, improve your life. And it will only cost you three easy payments of—oh wait, never mind. On to the helpful stuff:

• Remembering: This is an obvious one. From grocery lists and to-do lists to quick reminders and post-its, writing stuff down is the best, easiest, and quickest way to make sure you don’t forget things. I still write on my hand when I want to absolutely make sure I don’t forget something. Where this really comes in handy is for the important stuff in life. Sure, to-do lists can make you feel really good once you’ve completed them, but what I’m talking about is stuff like “start side business” or “email Ted about new plush teddy bear idea.” You know, the really important stuff.
  Me: Sometimes I feel like I’m inundated with ideas, some of them of which I think are brilliant. Sometimes I got nothing. But if you write it all down you can use the time when you’re drawing a blank to actually develop the good ones. I do that all the time on this site, sometimes more successfully than others.
• Thinking: I know 90% of people out there aren’t interested in this one. They’d rather sit in front of the TV and watch the trash that’s on TV (if so, do yourself a favor and at least watch The Wire). But for those of you sick of having the TV hijack your brain, sit down and write down something that happened today. Something that made you sick, angry, happy—whatever. Before I moved in with my wife, I had a lot of stuff I wanted to ruminate about (now I just whine to her instead of my journal) and my notebook is where I did it. Think of this as charting a timeline of you and what’s going on in your life. Reflecting on this kind of stuff can give you a little bit of Zen when things go crazy.
  Me: I keep a notebook (actually, several of them) that I used to write a ton in. Not so much now. But occasionally I still want to write down some of the stuff that has happened in my day and, in so doing, new nuggets (often known as “pearls of wisdom”) come out. Writing is just another way of thinking, but setting the time aside means you won’t be half-assing your way through it while American Idol goes to commercials.
• Evolving: This might sound a little nebulous to some, but if you’ve ever kept a journal, you probably know what I’m talking about. This is all about going back to look at the stuff you’ve written (see: Thinking) and riffing on it. “Wow, I can’t believe I felt that way back then. I’m so different now.” To me, writing stuff down is like making small building blocks. And the more you write and really think about the stuff that happens to you, the more you build yourself up, the more you learn about yourself. I call this “evolving.”
  Me: When I pick up my notebook and read some of the stuff I wrote years and years ago, you can see how you’ve evolved as a person, and to me that’s very interesting. I like to think that it has played a teeny tine role in my maturity (which is still an ongoing project…kind of like the Big Dig). And all kidding aside, I really think it has. I feel like I’ve learned from my lessons by writing experiences down and going back to read them years later.
• Not Forgetting: I know, it sounds like the first one, but this one’s different. I just saw Taxi to the Dark Side, a disturbing documentary that really punches you in the gut. After it was over, I thought to myself, “Now I go to sleep and then tomorrow I go to work and the world just mercilessly keeps on going no matter what.” Which is kind of depressing. But writing this stuff down means I won’t forget about these horrible things that have happened and may still be happening in the world. It kind of slows the pace down. More world leaders should try “not forgetting” as a means of not repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Well, that’s it. Hopefully some of you out there will find this helpful. Or at least entertaining. Writing has done a ton for me, and I’m sure it can help you out too (in its own way) if you just give it a chance.

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• The Movie That Turned Me Into a Writer
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• Failure as Motivation
• Writing Sucks
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