Why spend so much time remembering and recalling the things you have already done, instead of seeing them written down on paper. You don't have to keep that "mental tally" and helps externalize some of that anxiety.

The thing about recall is that we often remember the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. Serial-position effect, coined and studied by Hermann Ebbinghaus, help us to understand the way we process information.