The Power of Taking Notes: A Simple Habit for Business Success

Take Notes.  I don’t necessarily mean right here, right now, reading this (although you may find that helpful). What I mean is: Take Notes.  Take notes throughout the day.  Take Notes about every topic.  Take Notes before/after every meeting.  Take notes when something pops into your mind.  I get asked very often “How do you do it all?” And as you know, I actually want to answer that question.  This is something that is not talked about all that often, because it’s one of the most mundane parts of business in my opinion.  It is boring; SO boring that it’s barely worth talking about.  However, it IS worth talking about because I attribute it to SO much of my success and growth.  Let me give you an example. 

There are a few different reasons I do this.  Some of the reasons are for me, and some of the reasons are for the other person.  What it does for the other person, I feel, is the most important.  Have you ever gotten a random email or text from a coworker named Jerry such as “Hey, I have this idea - let’s do XYZ as a part of our new XYZ system, what do you think?”  To me, here is the problem with this: you were going about your day, doing your tasks, making your calls, etc.  Now, Jerry has swooped in & completely sidetracked your thought process.  Instead of thinking about what you were doing, now you’re thinking about Jerry’s idea.  You either hate Jerry’s idea and are thinking of all of the reasons this idea is stupid and what a nut Jerry is, or you love the idea and now are going back and forth with Jerry on plans and how exciting this all is.  Either way, your day has been derailed.  

What taking notes does is help you compartmentalize your ideas, thoughts, issues, venting, etc.  into the buckets where there’s a set time and place to discuss these things.  Now, if you’re thinking “I don’t have a place where I can talk about X, Y, or Z” - well then, this is a good sign you need a standing meeting or a regular space where you can.  Otherwise, clearly there are areas in your business that need to be addressed and you’re not creating containers for these conversations.  

For example, if you regularly are talking about how to improve your marketing system and feel like you and someone in your marketing team go back and forth all the time with no true progress moving forward, ask yourself: Is there a container where this person can share their ideas with me, and me with them?  Do we have clear, set action items?  If not, this is a clear indication that a standing meeting is important to schedule (more on that in other chapters), and you need notes for this meeting!

I have a monthly meeting with Suzie (fake name).  It’s Wednesday at 7PM (Suzie’s clocked out for the day OR this is outside Suzie’s regular working hours).  I have a thought.  It’s the best thought ever and I cannot wait to share it with Suzie.  I pick up my phone to call Suzie and….wait…..no.  Now isn’t the time.  I stop myself (this is based on a true story, my story, every single day).  I pull up my meeting notes with Suzie.  I’ll explain in a moment how I keep track of all these notes.  I write down the title of our next meeting (usually the date) - sometimes it’s already there.  Then, I bullet point the idea I am thinking about.  I feel great & got that off my chest, and Suzie can go about her evening without hearing me babble.  I call that a Win Win.  

 So, how does one structure all these notes?  You might think I have sticky notes pasted to my walls, computer, windows, etc.  I don’t.  In fact, I keep all my notes virtual for 2 reasons.  1. I don’t like sticky notes everywhere or clutter, it stresses me out.  2. I can access my notes from my phone anytime, anywhere.  (Yes, I might be on a boat in Key West writing down the fact that I need to talk to Steve about linking a certain document in his Welcome Email he sends to new employees).  I love an organization system like Google Drive.  There are other versions of it, but this is what I have found is the most efficient and cleanest for me.  So here’s what I do: I have a folder in my Drive called “Morgan’s Notes.”  Yes, that is what it is called.  Then, I have a document for every single container/space/meeting that I have regularly.  For example, if I have a weekly 15 minute check in with my Front Desk Manager, I have a note called “Company Name - Person’s Name”  AKA “Brunch - Stephanie.”  Every page is the meeting (yes, these end up being a lot of pages).  Now, throughout the week, I can either sit down like a normal person and prepare my well thought out topics (let’s be real, when that happens it’s amazing, but that never happens), OR, I can randomly through the week add bulletpoints of all of the things I need to talk to Stephanie about.  Now, I’m prepared and ready for our meeting.  

This works whether it is an informal meeting or not.  The above example is informal.  If it’s a more formal meeting where you need to submit an agenda ahead of time, perfect!  Take your notes throughout the week / 2 weeks / month (however often you have said meeting), make them a bit more organized since you’re sharing them (AKA don’t use swear words or emojis), prepare whichever numbers or data you need to have or collect it from where you need to collect it from, and voila, you’re always prepared!  If you need to prepare something that takes more time, I always set up a recurring task in my Asana that say something on every Monday (or however often you need to do this) such as “Prepare XYZ Meeting Notes” - within that task, I list out a template if necessary of the figures/data I need to collect OR a link to a spreadsheet or document I regularly share.  Either way, efficiency is key here and this way I never show up unprepared.  

This is also especially helpful when you have regular one on ones with your direct reports.  Within this document, I also save emails that I send to an employee that I feel might be necessary later.  This could be if someone repeatedly is making the same mistake and I’m concerned I might need to start ahem, gathering information.  It could be a long email sharing a new rule or system I need them to follow (so that way when they tell you “oh you never told me that” I can show I did).  I always write down the Action Items from a meeting so in our next meeting, we can refer back to them (hint: less is more).  A typical document for my meeting notes for a standard monthly meeting will look like this:

March Meeting

Topics to Discuss

March Action Items (revisit in April)

 Yeah, that’s it.  Less is more.  Simple is better.  This ensures that things actually get done and the needle is moving.  Too many action items and too much “stuff” just overcomplicates things and nothing gets done.  Sure, we feel good about ourselves and our really fancy system…but that is about it.  Push the Needle.  Set Action Items.  Follow Up.  Take. Notes.