Short Pencil or Long Memory?

Note: This was written years ago but lately I have read many scientific articles about note-taking. Many young coaches think this is some antiquated old school thing and cool videos with captions work better. The internet 20 second attention span is taken into account with instruction but it does not work as well as writing the information down (for most people).

I get tons of video but few videos with athletes writing notes in journals as they practice.

How are you going to remember strategy that worked vs an opponent you might not play for awhile?

How are you going to remember to use that one serve you worked on for a month? How can you remember little cues you developed in solo practice?

Answer: You cannot and a short pencil beats a long memory! (Mark Twain)

Write it down or click it and stick it in your smart phone. (I still like the act of writing it down as it tags the memory with most athletes)

Without a journal or a smart phone we all become dumb players.

I vividly remembering tearing out of the parking lot, furious at myself for a loss and getting halfway down the highway before I realized I had not used a serve I had been working on all week! What was worse was that serve would have worked! If I had gone through my notes before my match and rehearsed things in my mind it could have worked out much differently!