Notes Based Time Management

There has been some discussion on the various time management groups and forums to-do-lists and their effectiveness and necessity. This is not the first time the topic has come up and without tackling the debate about the necessity or pros and cons of the to-do-list. I wanted to see if there was a simple way to manage ones life while avoiding the to-do-list. Obviously if you have a great memory you do not need to be concerned with this issues.

I have outlined a method below a paper based method which accomplishes this and appeal to those right brained people inclined to take a more creative look at organization or those other just sick of list writing. The method is called notes based time management or NBTM since we all productivity authors need to have acronyms for our systems.

The method is actually quite simple. You start with a notebook of choice and simply start taking good notes. So, as you have a meeting or a phone call you start taking notes on the meeting. This does not need to be a word for word recording of the meeting, but simply the highlights. There is no need to use complete sentences. The key is what you do with the notes. Specifically, you are taking the notes with the goal of understanding what do these notes mean to me? Are there things I need to do as a result of this meeting and these notes? Is there an action I must take, a new project I will be working on or something someone promised to send to me? From these notes flow the items you will be working to complete. There is a description of a method I discuss in the Ultra Simple Guide to Time Management (available via download on my blog) to make notations in the margins of notes to make them easier to scan and more quickly accomplish what needs to be done. However, all that is required is that you are reviewing the notes and identifying items important to you. After reviewing notes, it may be that they simply contain information you would like to retain. In this instance the best thing to do is file them and reduce the pages of notes you need to review to stay on track. I would imagine that within one week, most people will have met with or spoken to virtually all of the key people in their life and most of the projects and actions that were on their plates will have been discussed. So within a short period of time you will have a useful set of notes and a very good idea of all that you need to be on top of. Additionally, you will probably be the go to person in the office to see who is responsible for what since many people do not take good notes.

This method is all great for interactions with others but typically you do not meet with yourself. I still maintain for grocery shopping etc., a simple TDL is the way to go unless you would like to schedule a meeting with yourself and discuss the utter lack of food within your refrigerator and pantry and then review the notes for the corrective actions you decided upon to remedy the situation. For the projects in your life you may want to use to use this method and have conversation with yourself and create notes of the session. This approach appeals to those who do not want the formality or pressure of a to-do-list and may want to noodle on things and then notate them when a commitment is made to take action.


NBTM may be the way to go for those looking to have a less structured system but have a trusted system in place. Let me know your comments.

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