Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

Note-taking Hygiene

A friend of mine has been working on her “sleep hygiene,” which really sounds like sleep habits to me, but hey, maybe thinking of it as hygienic motivates her to go to bed at a reasonable time, and that’s never a bad idea.

It occurred to me that it’s a trope that could work with other habits. As I was helping a client with a random pile of old papers recently, I started to think about note-taking hygiene.

I love to take notes. I believe I listen better and retain more when I take notes, even though I rarely look at them after taking them. (And, judging by the volumes of notes I’ve thrown out for my clients over the years, neither do you.) But, if you did want to refer to those notes—and sometimes you do—it’s much better if you can find them.

Many, many of my clients have many, many notebooks. Typically, each one has only a few pages written on, which are maddeningly scattered throughout the notebook. This is not good note-taking hygiene.

There are many useful ways to use notebooks. I have a spiral-bound notebook I like to use for most meetings. After the meeting, I rip out the notes and put them in the pertinent file. I also have a dedicated notebook for each child, so when I have a parent-teacher conference (so much more efficient on Zoom!) I can take notes in that child’s book.  Either way works, but you don’t need 25 notebooks going simultaneously.

Some clients rely on Post-it notes. They’re are great to stick on your computer screen to remind you to call the orthodontist first thing. But too many “important” reminders just become visual clutter, and they are too small, and can float away, making them impractical for true note-taking. Similarly, index cards are great for studying—they make good flash cards—but they don’t make sense as a note-taking tool.

So, here’s your challenge: Gather up all your half-written in notebooks and go through them. Treat the contents like any organizing project: sort what to keep, and what can be tossed, and them file what you’re keeping. Add to your contacts, add to your to-do list. Hopefully, you’ll end up with half-a-dozen perfectly good, now-empty notebooks. Put one on your desk, and unless you have a big project that merits its own notebook, put the other five with your office supplies (we’ll talk about them next week!). Start at the front. You can use a Post-it to make a tab in the middle of the notebook if you want to create sections. But practice restraint. All that good note-taking hygiene might even help you feel less frazzled and more relaxed.