Introduction

It always amazes Sope Agbelusi how many leaders he speaks to struggle to write things down, and then wonder why they cannot remember the brilliant ideas and strategies that came to them at random times.

Depending on which study you follow, the average person has somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 thoughts a day \[CHECK: transcript says "six to seventy thousand"; figure commonly cited as 60,000 to 70,000\]. Add a leader's daily conversations on top, and the idea that you can hold it all in your head collapses. You do not hold it. You lose it.

Writing organises and clarifies thought

Writing things down organises and clarifies our thoughts. It shows us what we know and what we do not know. Sope references a quote attributed to William Zinsser to this effect \[CHECK: attribution partially garbled in transcript\]. When the thought exists only in your head, you cannot examine it. On the page, you can.

The science: encoding

When you write something down, the information passes through the hippocampus, the part of the brain that decides what is worth storing and what can go in the bin. Writing signals importance, so the idea gets stored, and your chances of remembering it rise sharply. That is encoding, and it is why the idea you wrote down survives and the one you did not is gone by lunchtime.

Strategy needs to leave your head

A leader's core work is strategy, and strategy improves when it is visible. Written down, you can step back, analyse it, refine it, then take it to other people for their input. Kept in your head, all you can do is verbally share fragments, and it is far harder for anyone to give useful opinions on something they cannot see.

What happens when clients start writing

Whenever Sope works with clients who struggle with this, he insists they write things down from their sessions. Every single time, the feedback is the same: it helps them process, make decisions, and for some, shift from operational to strategic thinking, exactly the shift senior leadership demands.

If you want to lead yourself and lead other people better, start writing your thoughts out.