I recently sat through a long meeting with some people about some pretty important stuff at church. After the meeting, Meg (our Office Manager) confided, "It really bothered me that the key man in the meeting agreed to a large number of changes and didn't take a single note for follow-up."
"The subject we were discussing is pretty complicated to you and me," I replied. "He works with it every day and knows it like the back of his hand. Perhaps he (like me) is a verbal learner and simply took it all in. In that case, his notes might mean little to him if he had taken them."
I went on to describe LJ, one of my accountability partners. LJ is a professional who sits down with many people every day and helps them make life-critical decisions. When he sits down, he has a yellow pad and pen in front of him, taking meticulous notes of the entire conversation. He's great at it because that's the way his mind works.
You and I can't get very far leading or positively influencing others without a good attitude (Trade Tool 1). We will lose much of our effectiveness without Trade Tool 2: Organization Skills. We have to organize life to make the most of our opportunities.
How do you organize your life? Are you over-organized or under-organized?
2 comments:
I write things on post-it notes - if I have a big notebook I just get confused & lose information, but with small pieces of paper I can shuffle them around and throw away the ones I've dealt with. It works for me :)
I think that all who know me might say I'm a little "over-organized". Around the holidays or special days, I even begin a couple of months out and make lists of the lists that I need to have. At times it drives me a little insane, but for the most part, I'm happy that I'm the way that I am.
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