Do You Have A Permanent Record?

One skill I wish I could acquire from someone else is to be more disciplined about writing things down.  OK - so I do write a lot of ideas and tasks down (thanks to GTD I’ve gotten much better at this).

What I mean is “bigger” things, and writing them down more explicitly and earlier.  I have a friend that is very good at writing ideas down even while they are vague, then refining and clarifying them over time.  I, on the hand, tend to wait until I think the ideas are almost “done” before I write them down.  That means a lot of things get thought about, talked about… but not recorded.

You’re only hurting yourself with this rambunctious behavior…Right?

As a consequence of this tendency to leave things open-ended, it seems a lot of my grand  ideas don’t go anywhere because I never finished developing them, or I just move on and forget about them.  This, I believe is caused by a combination of:

• my introverted thinking style (I’m an INTJ / INTP on Myers-Briggs),
• my love for “fluidity” in the options I pursue, and
• fear of failure (or dislike for being held accountable?), at some level.

Until recently, I didn’t think of this as a big deal.  However, I have been very introspective lately and thinking about a few problem situations where I can see the negative consequences of not writing things down…and it bothers me.  You see, I have seen situations where the lack of a written record of ideas, commitments, and such has led to ambiguity that caused problems later.

Revising Verbal History Is Pretty Easy

In my opinion,the problem lies in the fact that human memory is fallible, and is much weaker than the human ego.  In the situations I’ve observed, this inherent conflict has led to things like:

• people not getting credit for some great ideas, because others didn’t remember where the idea came from;
• people not being held accountable for commitments they’d made because the commitments were never documented;
• people “adjusting” what they committed to, bringing it more in line with where things actually ended up;
• people moving accountability to someone else, when that wasn’t the original intent (sort of a scapegoat maneuver);

and things like that.

In most of these cases, the “revisionist historians” weren’t malicious – they were just trying to turn things to their own advantage and, I believe, in some of the cases they actually believed the altered back-story was true.

Permanent Records Are Harder To Change

What do I take away from this?  Writing plans and “big ideas” down is important – even when they are in their formative stages.  That will help you hang on to your ideas so they don’t drift away, help you keep track of where the good ideas (and bad ones) came from, ensure accountability, and – perhaps most importantly – give you the means to compare what happened to what you thought was going to happen so you can learn from your successes and failures.

So – my question to you:  what’s your advice to someone trying to develop this habit?  How do you overcome a tendency to take life as it happens and move to a more concrete model where plans, goals, and intentions are actually written down? 

Do tell.   And in writing, please!

Comments

[mc]

I think a 1st step might just be to start writing on a daily basis. Keep a journal with you at all times and write whatever comes to mind down when it hits you. Do this for 30 days to develop the habit.

Then start to get more focused on goals, plans, intentions, etc. Those things should come out naturally over time as you develop the habit of daily journal writing. Don't force it. Otherwise you'll be staring at a blank sheet trying to figure out what to write down for your goals, plans, and intentions. And remember, life is what happens while your making plans...

[Anonymous Reader]

I find using Google docs extremely effective. There's a gadget that allows me to see my docs on my iGoogle startup page, so they're always both accessible and "present"... Meaning I can't forget that they're there or what they're for.

Once you make the tools you use in a process ubiquitous, it's far simpler to actually use and enhance the process.

I have a document specifically for nascent ideas and plans. Once the idea has withstood the "does this still sound good two days later?" test and begun to develop, it often gets a doc of its own.

I agree with the journal idea as well. Sometimes some pretty amazing stuff can come from simply dumping your brain on to "paper".

[Dwayne Melancon]

Great suggestions, both of you. I'm trying to improve starting today.

One thing that makes me a bit nervous is that I also have a tendency to treat these kinds of things as "tool problems" instead of "me problems" so I know I need to force myself to develop a habit and not blame the tools I use.

That said, I think I'm going to use Evernote as my repository for this since that is one of the few apps I use all the time, and it's available on all my systems (and it synchronizes).

[Betsy Talbot]

Hi, Dwayne. I've seen that little notebook you carry around in your pocket - I do the same, but I've found lately it is not enough. Sometimes you need something more fluid, and for that I like plain old index cards. I keep a stack by my desk and pull them out whenever I have a brainstorm or a brief thought that needs to be fleshed out later. It has been really helpful in capturing all the blog post ideas I get, even if they are not quite fully formed yet. When I'm away from the office, I keep my index cards in my bag or pocket for the same thing.

I still use my notebook when I'm working on a specific idea or taking notes from a seminar, but the index cards are better for my own style of brainstorming in other situations.

Regarding the action items/credit/scapegoating of documenting work with others, I find that a followup email after a conversation or meeting works best. It immediately draws out any miscommunication that may have occurred, and it is also date/time-stamped for reference. Hard to beat that for giving credit or preventing a drive-by scapegoating.

[Dwayne Melancon]

Great advice, as always Betsy. I'll have to try the notecard approach. I used them once upon a time, but have drifted away. That could be just what the doctor ordered.

And approaching it (mentally) as brainstorming might help me get past the "it's not done yet" blocker.

I'll try the follow up email approach, too. In some of the cases I'm thinking of, that definitely did not happen.

[Alexander Schwarz]

Same with me: INTP, fluidity of options, fear of failure - just as you've mentioned. I always feel that I've got too many ideas but they're not structured enough, so in the end I don't capture them and they are often lost.

I found an interesting approach just yesterday that I'll try in the following weeks:

Using Personal Brain for Life Management (see this screencast by MArk Michael Lewis for a nice example:

http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stVUlcQ0RIR11ZQFtbWlJbUFJQ/using_personal_brain_for_life_management

[Simple Life Tool]

Thanks for the great advice. I have found that writing down things keeps me more organize and helps me keep track of the daily things i need to do. I also use Google docs to keep a record of everything i have done so that i can refer back to them in the future. This article was very informative and I learned a lot of other reasons why i should keep permanent records in this article that i did not know about.