The thin red line: my current favourite notebook hack
One of the things that amuses me about the public service is the way record-keeping quickly becomes central to how you end up doing things.
When I’m dealing with my mobile phone provider, it can be really useful to be able to say things like “when I spoke with Jade at 3.30pm on Thursday, she said that this issue would be taken care of by Friday at the latest,” and know that this extra level of detail is likely to ensure that my question is answered quickly.
Similarly, I take copious notes in meetings and while I’m on the phone at work. Some of it is mindless doodling, and some is almost formal minute-taking — but either way, it gives me a good record of what happened, and most importantly, a record of things I’ve agreed to do (and things other people have agreed to do for me).
Making these data points stand out, though, is the tricky bit. In theory, this is an excellent example of ‘ubiquitous capture’, in that the very act of taking notes is providing me with the next actions I need to take.
In reality, though, they can easily get lost among the clutter. Options I’ve tried to highlight the next actions include asterisks, underlining, highlighting, etc, and none of them really work. (Using a separate pen/highlighter is a particular pain because suddenly I’m carrying around two pens instead of one, and that way madness lies.)
Instead, I’ve started using a very simple hack — so simple that I’ve seen it mentioned in many different places. If you think you invented it and would like to take credit for it, let me know!
Tools required
- Notebook
- Ruler
- Pen
Method
- Open notebook to a right-hand page
- Place ruler approximately 5-6cm from the right-hand edge of the page
- Draw a line between the top and bottom of the page
- [optional] Title this column ‘next actions’
This is how I’m using it:
- on the left-hand page of any two-page spread, I doodle around and scribble whatever comes into my mind at the time
- on the right-hand page (main column) I write more formal notes, records of meetings and phone calls, and so on
- any time these notes generate a next action, I write it into the right-hand column at the appropriate point.
Then, back at my desk, I can simply scan the right-hand column of pages I’ve written on and take next actions straight into my context lists without having to worry about missing any that might be buried in the text of the page.
It’s a simple hack, but it’s a good one, and it’s working out beautifully for me so far.
Have you tried something similar? Is it a success?
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