I’m having trouble prioritizing. I’m having trouble making sense of this. I’m having trouble remembering. It feels like a big ball of stuff. I don’t really know what the next step is.

Want more clarity and organization in your thinking and decision-making? Write down your thoughts. With a pen and paper. Write it down.

Scientific research suggests that the practice of writing, as opposed to just thinking (or even typing), helps us access different parts of our brain at once that can instigate creativity and learning. Dr. Virginia Berninger, who studied the effects of handwriting on the brain as an educational psychology professor at the University of Washington, says “Writing is the way we learn what we’re thinking.”

When I’ve got a head full of mush, a million thoughts swimming around, and I can’t find the way out, writing down my thoughts tends to help. What feels like emptying my head is exactly that. It’s outta there. Sometimes that’s all I need. I push the notebook away and go on with my day. Other times, I review what I wrote to seek a different perspective. Seeing it on the page forces me to reinterpret these thoughts from an angle that is literally outside my head.

If you’re like me at all, you’re probably resistant to this idea. In an age where my fingers and hands do most of my communication, I want to know why I can’t just type it. It’s faster and easier. But that’s exactly the problem. The practice of writing slows us down; our brain finds it restful. The formation of the letter, the literal drawing of the symbols is the thing that activates massive regions of our brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory. Says Dr. Berninger, “[t]hat process of production involves pathways in the brain that go near or through parts that manage emotion.” This unlocks new ways of thinking about a problem or solution and helps us tap into our body brain (vs. our logical head brain). The thing that sucks about it is also the thing that makes it work.

If you like the idea but are lacking the energy, I get it. Make it easy for yourself. 3 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever is so easy you can’t negotiate your way out of it. Small progress is still progress. And if you need something to write about or a framework to do it, I’d recommend using my guided writing exercise, reading up on morning pages, or googling “journal prompts” for an infinite list of topics.

Go get ‘em this week.