Welcome Professionals…
…Do you still keep a notebook? I am not talking about a laptop, I mean those hardcover books of white paper, sometimes bound in leather, sometimes with carved-in initials of the owner. Do you use these?
Despite the fact that we are oversupplied with computing power, I regularly see business people taking notes in a notebook made of paper. Everything is filed in there in chronological order. Meeting after meeting – regardless of the subject or project. It is a mystery to me how someone can find anything within these books. One would have to remember date and time of a certain subject and even then, one would have to go back through many pages, sometimes even moving to another notebook!
What is worse – it also implies carrying around a lot of useless weight. Either old pages with mostly completed tasks and outdated notes or just white sheets of paper. Sorry – other than for journaling or nostalgic handwriting enthusiasts I do not see the use of such notebooks in business life.
I keep a pad of paper on my desk in order to take initial handwritten notes during phone calls or meetings. I usually carry around about 5 key pages of work in process with me. Everything else is either transcribed into tasks in my calendar or information with follow-up dates in my CRM system.
For a while I tested the use of electronic notebook apps like evernote and others. But I actually do not get any added value out of those. Calendar and CRM work fine for me.
Which tools do you use to stay organized? Let us know with a comment to this post.
Malte
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Whilst working in the banking Industry we had Secretaries who kept watch for us with hard-cover diaries, or diarised file jackets. Then the table top computers came with apparatus which will show up every morning, there were diary looking gargets called organisers, which we carried everywhere we go. Later, came laptops and Ipads with memos and notes. I like my advanced smartphones best out of them all with all sorts of apparatus to organize me and also easy to carry in the pouch of my bag. I still carry a small hardcover diary around. And you know what it is like here your PA goes around with you.