According to this Forbes article, writing down our goals and tasks can help us achieve them more successfully. Seeing a goal or task written down reminds us what we have to do, but there's also something deeper happening—encoding—"the biological process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus where they’re analyzed." Writing things down improves that encoding process—the more we write down, the more we remember.

This can be done on paper with calendars, planners, and lists. But lists and reminders can be a bit Ho Hum, so if you're a visual person like me, try creating a vision board instead. What is a vision board? It's merely a visual representation of your goals and tasks, using images or a combo of words and images. But the end result is much more eye-catching. I print mine out and post it on the bulletin board by my desk.

You can create a vision board for your annual writing goals, but I like to create quarterly goals. Vision boards work better when it's not crowded with images like a collage and keeping your goals to a manageable number increases your chances of sticking to it. However, you can create a series of vision boards if you want — one for your annual goals, one for monthly or quarterly goals, and one for daily goals etc.

Here are 5 cool ways you can create your own vision board:

1) Pinterest. If you already have an account and are familiar with using Pinterest, this is probably the easiest. You can cull for images that represent what your goals are, and create a board for them. If you're not familiar with Pinterest, it's social media with pictures.

Pros: Easy to add and organize images. Free.

Cons: You can give the board and the images a title, but you can't add text to the images.

2) Dream It Alive. The free version of this site allows you to create Dream Boards using images from their site in categories such as Love and Romance, Wealth and Prosperity, Career and Life Path etc. You can also assign emotions to your goal. Will completing the goal make you feel appreciation, joy, confidence?

Pros: Simple to create. Can add text to images

Cons: The free version of this is limited. Uploading your own images is not intuitive. It took me awhile to find the Upload Image button. You can't move the images on your dream board around. You can't download your board. The paid plan is $1.99/mo. for annual plan, $3.99/month if you pay monthly.

3) Vision Board. Yes, there is a site simply called Vision Board. It's free and you can search for images online or upload your own.

Pros: Can add text, upload your own images or find images online. Free.

Cons: Visually, it's limited. You can't move and organize your images and text around to the position you want it. And you can't place your text in the same space as your image. Text and images appear in separate boxes.

4) Trello. I use Trello for all kinds of organizational and project management tasks. It's Free and fairly simple to use. You can use it to create a Vision Board as well. In the image below, I have general Writing Projects I'm working on, daily writing goals, and a vision board from Jan. - March. You can add images as well to make it truly visual.

Pros: Free. Easy to use. Can create as many boards and lists as you want on the Free account. Can add images to your list. Can move your cards around to re-order in terms of priority.

Cons: As a vision board, it's limited as tasks are set up in a linear fashion. But if you like to see things in a straightforward linear way, Trello is great.

5) Canva. My favorite online tool for creating vision boards, mainly for its flexibility. You can add text, images, re-size images to emphasize more important tasks, create different visual layouts, you can use Canva images (note: some you have to pay for, but for a nominal fee of $1) or upload your own. I use the blank poster template as it gives me the right sized canvas I want to create my vision board, but there are many other templates to choose from.

Pros: FREE. Flexible Layout. Can add Images, place text on images, organize and re-size images however you want, upload your own or search Canva's vast image database, choose one of the many font styles Canva offers.

Cons: None.

Feel free to share links or images to your Vision Board in the comments below.

Happy Goal Planning and Vision Board Creating!