This past week I visited my good friend Ashley who I met in college at Virginia Tech. Ashley and her husband Billy just welcomed a new baby boy to their family a few weeks ago. It was so nice to visit her and meet the new bundle of joy!

While we were sitting on the sofa in her sun-room catching up, we got into the discussion of student organization (Ashley is a high school math teacher).

Specifically, we were discussing the difference between students who write their homework down in their agenda book versus students who don’t write their homework down at all.

What Ashley was saying was pretty startling. She mentioned “on average” about half of her students wrote their homework down in their agenda book on any given day while only a quarter actually completed the homework.

I was completely shocked hearing this.

That means, in a class of 30 students, on average, 15 students are actually using their agenda book and writing their homework down while only 7 or 8 students are actually getting their homework completed.

My mind was blown when I heard this.

Now, of course every school and every classroom is different in every country, state and county. And maybe this isn’t the case for most schools or classrooms, however, just to know that this is actually happening in one classroom today is startling to hear. After all, today’s learners are tomorrow’s leaders…

All of this got me thinking about the importance of not only writing things down, but taking action. The first step is writing things down. You have to write things down to remember what action is necessary.

The second step is taking action on what you wrote down. Just because you wrote something down, doesn’t guarantee it’s going to get done. You must choose to complete the task and this is done by taking action.

Anyway, the conversation I had with Ashley this week made me want to send out a reminder about the importance of writing things down in efforts to take action and progress forward.

So, my question to you is- is there something you aren’t writing down and instead keeping inside your head? If so, spend a few minutes and write it down. You’ll feel more clear when you do so.