‘I have been doing so my whole life’: Frances Whiting’s surprising confession

It’s an old-fashioned habit but one that has proved time and again to be invaluable.

Writing notes continues to prove a valuable skill.

‘What are you doing?” my friend Judith asked me the other day as we were talking on the phone.

I was running late for work, which is very unlike me*, and I was quickly scribbling out a note to my son reminding him of our dog Wilson’s vet appointment, while simultaneously scribbling out a mental note to myself to take out a second mortgage to pay for it.

The thing is, my mate Judith has very poor eyesight, which means she has excellent hearing.

Honestly the woman is like a bat, and what she could hear was the sound of my pen scratching.

“Just leaving a note,” I replied, to which she said “on actual paper?”, and the only way she could have sounded more surprised would have been if I’d said I was chiselling it out on a bit of rock.

But Judith was not mocking me, quite the opposite, she was delighted.

“Oh I love that,” she said. “I love that you still write actual notes instead of just texting, it’s so much more personal.”

Queues out the door at new all-you-can-eat restaurant

‘It works’: The mindset hack that will change your life

This made me feel both good about myself, and also Amish.

The thing is, I do still leave notes out for my family members but to be honest they are not so much personal as they are instructions on things I want them to do for me, like “take in washing” or threats, “walk dog or else”. I still leave them out because I have been doing so my whole life, and not just to other people – I leave notes for myself too. These are also on paper, usually scribbled out last thing at night before sleep beckons.

Now, these have changed since my student days when they mostly consisted of just two words: “GET UP”, but the act of writing them has not.

Because I think there is something more impactful about a written note versus a text.

Something in the physicality of putting pen to paper that makes it more likely that I might do whatever it is I’ve written about.

Frances Whiting. Picture: David Kelly

In the case of the notes I leave for my family, I put them in spots where they cannot possibly be missed, like under a magnet on the fridge door.

I do this with the same sort of misguided hope with which I pop things I want to be taken upstairs at the bottom, knowing deep in my heart it doesn’t matter what I put there – laundry, shoes, books – they’ll just step right over ’em.

Yes, just like my magic stairs that render objects invisible – I could put a live goat on them and nobody would notice – so too my notes are often ignored with “Oh, sorry I didn’t see it.”

Nevertheless, I persevere, and the truth is that my instructions are often accompanied by a personal message, depending on what sort of day I know someone might have ahead of them.

I might scribble at the end “I love you”, or “Have a great day”, or “You’ve got this” because I know that even though they might later say they didn’t see my request to take out the bins, put the dinner in the oven or feed the dog, I know that they’ve seen the only message that – in the overall scheme of things – counts at all.

*Between us, this is not unlike me at all.