Take Notes to Save Time
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
My brain really dislikes inefficiency in my life. It will tolerate me struggling with something that is challenging but new to me. After all, I’ve never done that kind of activity before, so it makes sense that it will take time to figure it out. But once I have figured it out one time, if I then encounter that same task again and struggle a second time, my brain finds this state of affairs unacceptable.
For example, last year I started making Mind Movies. A Mind Movie is basically a vision board set to music. I create a PowerPoint presentation with all of my goals for the year with music playing in the background of the presentation. Last year, I was somewhat rusty on my PowerPoint skills, so I Googled how to set a presentation to music. It took a while for me to get it right, but I finally did, and I enjoyed my Mind Movie for all of 2020. A few weeks ago, it was time to update my Mind Movie with new goals for this year and new music. Wouldn’t you know, I could NOT figure out how to set the presentation to music, again! As I said, my brain absolutely loathes it when I waste time trying to figure out how to do something that I’ve already done in the past. This loathing is a hallmark of my brain’s character and a big reason why I end up being so efficient. So this time, when I finally figured out how to set up the Mind Movie again, my brain was screaming, “YOU BETTER TAKE NOTES ON THAT THIS TIME!” I opened a blank Word document, wrote step-by-step instructions for how to create a Mind Movie for future years, and saved that Word document in the same e-file as my Mind Movie PowerPoint files. Next year and in all future years, when it’s time to update my goals and music, it will take much less time to complete that task.
Taking notes on tasks and duties that are complex or done infrequently saves me so much time. If there’s a custom report that I need to replicate quarterly that involves numbers from many different sources, then there’s a note document saved with those reports that spells out exactly where I obtain each of those numbers. When I was in charge of ordering office supplies, I had an Excel spreadsheet that listed all of the items we usually order along with the item order numbers. I have home notes too for things like the name of the make-up foundation color that I prefer or the phone number of the company that annually washes my windows and how much they tend to charge. If my brain struggles to remember something twice, then it implores me to take notes so I don’t struggle a third time. So I implore you to take notes as well. A little bit of time spent writing out the step-by-step instructions for a complex task while it’s fresh in your mind can make all future execution of that task easier and save you time in the long run.
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Productively Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team