Audio Transcript:
To capture quick notes, just fold up your Daily Page, like this.
Let’s say you’re on the phone with someone, and they give you their email, or they tell you what days the factory will be closed, or your wife tells you when you’ll be going on vacation and the flight information. Having a place for notes is a lot neater and less chaotic than filling your desk and life with little scraps of paper.
Also, sometimes I make some notes here when I need to think things through a little on paper, which is a great practice if you struggle with working memory. Thinking on paper is more productive because you don’t have to juggle all those ideas in your head.
At some point, I might need to add some of these notes to my system. What’s nice is that when I switch out my Daily Page tomorrow, I’ll see these notes again and, if I haven’t done it already, I’ll add them to my Monthly Planner or Weekly Page. Depending on the note, I may even add it to a project planner or to a production manual on google drive, etc.
By the way, speaking of thinking things out on paper, here’s an idea to consider if you’ve never done it. Sometimes, when I need to do some deep thinking or brainstorming about a solution to a problem, I’ll go for a long walk on some paved or unpaved nature trails nearby, usually alone but sometimes with my wife or a co-worker. In those situations, I’ll add a couple of extra blank pages to my clipboard for more extensive notes. (Just fold some letter-size pages in half and then rip them in two.)
Getting out of the house or office can be great for thinking of solutions from a different perspective. What I’ve found to be really productive at times is to go for a trail run. When I get back to my car, I’ll grab my clipboard (with the pencil here like this) and take a walk to cool down from my run and think. After a run, my mind is calm and completely focused, so it’s often an engaging and exhilarating time to think up novel solutions to challenges.