take note about taking notes

Take note about taking notes - a productivity and career article

​One of the benefits of having a nagging mother, if we could call them benefits, is your body becomes conditioned to mechanically work or react to what has been nagged about. Even early on in her career, my mother nagged about the value of taking notes when she calls you. In fact, she nagged and repeated that she does not want to repeat herself. This applied to everyone who worked for her in the office or at home. And I make an emphasis on the for instead of with to make it more apparent how our bodies were conditioned to bring a damn notepad and pen. 

Because of that, the moment I started working, it was natural for me to take important notes. That seems trivial enough but what I discovered is in my career in marketing, it is the one thing that helped set me apart. As you read on, I’m going to tell you why and what that means for you and your career growth.
By taking notes, it’s highly likely that you would be:

• leading an initiative that is important to stakeholders,
• consulted to identify the best people or methods to complete those initiatives or be monitoring,
• or communicating the progress of those initiatives to stakeholders.

The challenge, of course, is seeing through the “extra role,” and this is why it is valuable for me as a marketer. In marketing, strategic plans and tactical campaigns are as dynamic as they come. Every review period, the department justifies their existence with data and direct or indirect sales contribution. But by taking notes, you would be seen as someone who can pursue, oversee and assist in initiatives that are valuable to the organization. It will allow you to make marketing activities more relevant to both external and internal customers, showcase the capabilities of your team and add value to the department by having a say on how marketing can support those initiatives. 

[But] because you will tend to feel accountable for having the knowledge of what those plans are simply for taking them down as notes in your notebook, you will tend to take on a strategic position that benefit the organization as a whole.

Beyond marketing, acting on and following through corporate strategic plans are some of what organizations fail to do. Assigning it to department heads or executive assistants means plans for the year will have to go to the back of the line, behind the more urgent ones in their to do list. But because you will tend to feel accountable for having the knowledge of what those plans are simply for taking them down as notes in your notebook, you will tend to take on a strategic position that benefit the organization as a whole.
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Of course, not all of these come naturally simply because I took notes. There is influence, experience and motivation that come with it. But it starts with taking those damn notes. In the next couple of days I hope to talk about how you can do that if taking notes is simply not in your DNA.