Reminder: Check Your Old Notebooks | Learning

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I moved home earlier this year, so had to do a lot of sorting out. I’ve gone from my ‘office’ being a corner of the front room to a room of its own. Before, lots of things were piled on top of each other and stored in boxes, because there wasn’t enough room to have them all out and accessible. Now I’m faced with it all, I can see I have too many notebooks. In fact, there’s seven different ones around here, all used for scribbling down ideas and notes from training sessions, seminars and wifiless coach trips I’ve experience to over the past few years. I’d be lying if I said I’ve come back to any of these things more than once afterwards. I bet loads of other people are in the same position.

Your notebooks probably contain gems that you completely forgot about. I know that my iCloud notes definitely do, and there’s just as much goodness going on with my actual notepads too. I’m about to organise mine, so I’m telling you to do the same.

Take Time Out to Sort Them Out

Apparently I start at one end of the notebook and then flip right to the back with a fresh new subject. All of my notebooks are all over the place and need to be organised. Where the information is relevant and/or important, I’ve re-written them and stored them within my Dropbox, so it’s a lot easier to get to them.

It was my aim to get to the point where I could throw out all of the pages that I no longer needed. I had to get all of the information that I needed in places that made sense, and discard all of the things I thoroughly know no, or just doesn’t apply to anything I’m likely to do in the future. Don’t underestimate how long this part is going to take.

Put Them in Helpful Places

All of your notes need to go into helpful places, if they’re going to be of use to you in the future. You won’t believe how many notes I’ve saved as email drafts to myself. I could have three for the same subject, when I’ve got a whole list of notes about the same thing on a Word document somewhere. It’s just a case of consolidating everything and taking in what you need to.

It’s completely up to you where you save these things, but just make sure it’s helpful for you. I opted for email drafts at times because I’m already in my emails, and it’s more convenient than jumping onto Word. However, I lose/accidentally delete a lot of things this way. I know very well that anything written on paper won’t be looked at again for at least a year, so I need to get everything out of physical notebooks as soon as I can.

Act on Them

Now you have all of your notes – potentially ideas and actions you need to bring to life for your projects – it’s time to actually act on it. There’s not a lot of point having it sat there. Not only will you start to forget what you were on about when you wrote your notes, but you’re probably going to find these things less helpful over time. Just get on with it now.

I use Trello to organise all of my tasks, and sorting out loads of notebooks meant I could slot in a load of actions over the next few weeks and months. Rather than them sitting there doing nothing, I’m making sure I do something with them. I don’t have to act on everything today, but I do need to make sure that I’m applying these ideas and actions as soon as I can.