Image by Pexels from PixabayIf you are feeling disorganized, having trouble remembering stuff you need to do, and never having enough time to do everything you want. You can fix this easily,
By taking notes.
Having a cluttered mind with all that stuff you need to do is unnecessary and it makes you work less efficiently. Remembering everything and organizing as you go takes a lot of energy to do, it's stressful and, again, inefficient. By taking notes you can free yourself from doing all of that with basically zero effort.
You have an idea? Write it down.
You heard something you need to remember for later? Write it down.
You need a plan to make this week as productive as possible? Write it down.
Writing Down Ideas
Image by Wolfgang Eckert from PixabayWhen you get in the habit of writing down your ideas you instantly get more productive time. What do I mean by that? It's simple if you get an idea that might really help you with your work or on a side project you are working on, most of the time you won't be able to implement or test out your idea immediately. What usually happens, is you forget about it, or if you remember it later on, you forget all those details that made so much sense the first time you had the idea, then you scrap it, and all that time goes to waste.
If you write down the idea, you not only guarantee you won't forget about it, you will be able to clarify those thoughts, build on them, and refine them until you find a way to incorporate them. So not only will you stop wasting time, you will stop wasting ideas. You will get more time in return and get more than all at once.
What To-Do List
Image by bohed from PixabayThis is one of the first things that people associate taking notes with. The organization is key to boosting productivity. Some people like to think that they perform better when they aren't tied down to an exact schedule or have to follow everything step by step. I won't deny that there might be some of you out there that are good at finding and doing work on the fly. But you are putting yourself under more stress than you need to. You might dislike having an "anchor" for your day, but remember that you are doing this for yourself, you don't have to follow everything exactly as you have written down but one thing that you can do only if you have a pre-composed set of actions you are going to take this week for example, even though it might sound contradicting have more freedom that if you are constantly improvising.
Think about it. Why would you prefer to constantly think about thinking what to do instead of planning everything out once, and then never worrying about it until you get the job done?
Making a plan for your week takes about 15-30 minutes. It gives you so much room for other mental activities during the week, relieves stress, and helps you overall with your mental health.
Your Feelings Are Feedback
Image by Esa Riutta from PixabayTaking notes isn't just about what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. It's about you collaborating with yourself. Especially when you just start making a habit of taking notes you will most likely have some difficulty sticking to your written plan. And that's alright. You won't always be able to do what you set for yourself, or maybe you don't want to do something you wrote down for some reason.
When that happens you will feel something. Write it down. Do you feel angry or sad because you didn't do it, are you okay without doing that, is keeping up with this schedule too stressful, etc. etc? It's important to write this down. This will tell you what is the problem, or if there even is a problem. Emotions can sometimes give an answer we aren't able to identify at the moment and when you write them down you are giving yourself the opportunity to reflect on it later. By using that information, you will learn more about yourself, what you want to be doing, and why. This will help you make more suitable schedules for yourself thus making you more productive in the future.
When to Take Notes
If you asked yourself that, it was probably at that moment.
My approach is taking note of anything that makes me go "that's interesting" or "what if I do this" or anything like that. Even if I get some random idea that has nothing to do with the current work I'm doing, it takes only a couple of seconds to write it down but it helps me regain focus to what I'm doing now. This might sound like a distraction but in reality, it freed me from wondering about the potential of that thought, I just wrote it down, and it will be there when I get the time to explore it further.
Always carry around with you your preferred device or textbook to write down notes in. Some people prefer digital formats, which I would recommend for organizing work. For other thoughts and writing down feeling most prefer writing in physical form. This is, of course, completely a matter of preference even though there that something that is more personal about writing down things in a diary or a textbook.
Taking notes is easy, incredibly useful and you don't have an excuse to not start today. Just try it, go plan your next week. See how much you can get done. It will be a lot more than you think, I promise. I like to share tips for productivity, and this is the best one that requires basically nothing to start. If you stick around this most definitely won't be the last time I'm going to talk about taking notes, because I really believe that this simple habit is incredibly underrated and underused and more people should work on it, right now.
If you have something to add on this subject please leave a comment. If you have a question or need more tips, well, leave a comment. :D
As always, thank you for reading.
Wes...
