My Daily Notes
This part of my system has had the largest changes in the last year. For the last 17 years I have kept a composition notebook that I keep all of my notes, both personal and professional in one place. I can go back to a notebook seven years ago and remember exactly what was going on that day based on the little jot's that I had throughout the day. I keep small notes, voice mail notes, meeting notes, church notes, family notes. Nothing in long detail and nothing longer than a sentence of two. Think of sticky notes type of structure, yet on composition notebooks. What I didn't get out of this system was quick reference ability. I couldn't easily search for numbers that I needed, meeting notes, etc. if they were more than 4 months ago. (I could usually squeeze 4 months out of a 100 page composition book.
Evernote - Really?
This need led me to Evernote. Evernote users are like a cult - they feel you can document your entire life, every web clipping, todo, thought, picture, and life happening. I have used EverNote in the past and dropped it like a bad habit because it just didn't feel right - it got in the way time and time again. Compelled by updated software and by a few blog posts from Micael Hyatt about EverNote (remember I used his annual time block) I took the time to organize EverNote into something that finally doesn't get in the way.
Keep in mind that my primary note taking during meetings is still paper.
My Notebooks in EverNote consist of
* Daily Journal Notes - This is what was normally on my composition pad. Each day gets a new note
* Ministry - Everything Church related gets organized in this Notebook
* Personal - Family life
* Blog - Ideas about items I should blog about and my writing history
* Books - Each book I'm reading gets a note that lists main points, notes about the book while I'm reading it and characters if it is non-fiction
* DRIP - This is a notebook where I keep information about people I care about. This is my own customer relationship management system. I can keep track of team members, names of their children, important things in their lives that I should care about. I have a large team of awesome people and while I want to remember everything about them it is almost impossible. I try to keep some type of note that reminds me of the most important things they are interested in.
* First Lego League - I teach a class to kids using Lego Robotics. All of my notes are in this Notebook
* Personal - This is just random items that relate to me personally. For example I have the layout of our square foot garden in that Notebook
* Work - Subcategorized (or stacked as Evernote calls it) into:
* Memorial - Everything related to my primary job as CIO get's lumped here
* Teaching - I teach a class at the local University and guest lecture a number of times through the year at various other schools. I keep notes, speeches, syllabus information and various information about the classes
I used the tags on EVERY entry in EverNote. Unlike Toodledo I'm expecting to have my notes forever. (That's the topic of a future blog). To better organize and find things I tag each item with the project name, persons name or any other relevant tag that might be helpful in the future when I try to search for the note.
Paper and EverNote?
I am sure that many of you are wondering how I reconcile my paper notepad with EverNote. This was the stumbling block of my system for quite some time. I have come to code my paper notebook in unique ways. If I am in a meeting I will take notes on paper, write down todo's that I need to follow-up on and document important dates. For any todo I write a large T and circle it on the left hand margin. This clues me in that I need to log that todo. For any calendar event I write a large C and circle it. After the meeting, or sometimes at the end of the day, I try to summarize the meeting into EverNote. Sometimes the meeting dictates I need a new note all by itself, other meetings I just jam in to the Daily Journal Note for that day.
While I thought that would be a complete waste of time when I started I was really surprised at how often, while I was typing out my thoughts of the meeting, something that I didn't write down came to me and I noted it or created the todo. It was a more complete solution.
This does require me to type a bit more (I'm a fairly fast typist), but I find that having the information is incredibly helpful that it creates a significant advantage.
So there you have it. In four simple posts you have had a glimpse of how I try to manage the continuous flow of information that I deal with on a daily basis. It has taken 15 years to get it ..... to this point.....
No comments:
Post a Comment