Why You Should Always Carry a Notebook
Get In the Habit of Capturing Ideas
There isn’t one prolific business person whether colleague, client or candidate that I know that hasn’t practised the habit of carrying a notebook. I have stacks of Moleskine notebooks on my bookshelves in the office (and clogging my drawers at my desk). All the projects, policies and ideas that I’ve turned into reality started in the pages of my notebooks.
I personally use a number of different notebook throughout the day whether at home organising my family life though to note books for meetings (external and internal) my at desk note pad for phone calls and also strategic project based note pads. I am a note book evangelists.
My Business partner Paul is also a note taking Maven and has been on a pilgrimage to the holy land of a paperless desk. Paul has evolved his notebook use over a number of different tablets, platforms, OS’s and apps. Interestingly Paul and I had a discussion where Paul will be integrating a physical note book again into his note taking system.
There are a number of key benefits to carrying a note book with you:
1. Ideas Emerge at Odd Times
Like falling in love, moments that announce themselves as your subject are rare, and there’s magic to them. Ignore them at your own peril.
If you haven’t noticed, ideas don’t always show up according to your schedule. The muse is a fickle mistress who makes appearances at her own convenience.
• Ideas emerge when we’re at dinner and someone says something
• Ideas emerge when we’re at the gym, sailing with friends or flying down a mountain on a snowboard
• Ideas emerge when you’re sitting in porta cabins with clients and the discussion is flowing
If you’re going to consistently come up with ideas to do something with, you have to be able to capture them regardless of when they show up.
2. Ideas don’t show up fully formed
Ideas are like babies (a very topical subject at WRS Tech – we currently have 4 expectant fathers in the shipbuilding team). They don’t show up in our lives fully formed. They need time to bake, grow and evolve. They have to be nurtured and care for.
3. Notebooks are fertile soil for the seeds of Success
Success requires us to plant seeds and play the infinite game. A notebook is fertile soil in which you can plant those seeds. At WRS Tech we have a very handy CRM system which helps our consultants and staff deal with their day to day recruitment duties (and do it incredibly well – check out our testimonials) however as discussed Paul and I utilize notebooks and some cloud based platforms (google drive is proving incredibly useful) to grow our business from a strategic point of view. Our combined use of notebooks acts as the ignition to setting things in motion.
This is encouraged because each morning I always write notes and lists by hand before I ever turn on my computer. It allows me to focus and retain information, and there’s tremendous power to pen and paper in an increasingly digital world.
Sometimes of our new consultants get tripped up because they have no idea what they’ll put in their notebooks. Other times they don’t want to ruin something as beautiful as a brand new pristine notebook with their chicken scratch notes. But our established team members encourage their new colleagues and will proudly show off their notebooks full of doodles, scribbles, half diagrams, chicken scratch notes and crossed out to do lists.
There are no hard and fast rules as to what should go in the pages of your notebook but I encourage those looking to increase their productivity to carry one.
