A simple note-taking practice to increase productivity & creativity

That's how many days are left in 2020. I can't really believe it myself, as weird and uncomfortable and frustrating and sad and weird that 2020 has been. And there are a lot of other words that you could use. We're almost to the end of it. There are two things that have really been sticking out to me over the last month. First is the, like, mind-blown realization of how simple yet effective note-taking can really impact and improve the creative process. I've talked about this on Twitter. I've talked about this on my email list. I had, like, a Q&A livestream about it last week here on the channel. And this has been one of the biggest like feedback pieces that I've gotten besides just like the bullet journal in general about like, how do you take better notes? How do you make a note like important or impactful? How are you able to like organize them? And this is something that I find incredibly exciting. So that's number one. The second one is obviously 2020 has been, um, a unique, weird, uncomfortable, sometimes scary year. And I wouldn't blame you if you're ready to turn the page on 2020. But there is still a good chunk of the year left, roughly 25%. I think of my year a lot in quarters, and we're in the final quarter, but it is still an entire quarter. And one of the things that I'm still thinking about a lot, and I'm talking to a lot of people about, is how can I still have like a healthy, positive end to this year. Unprecedented events, events that would define a decade, have happened like every month and sometimes every week. And what I want to do is take control of one little aspect of something that I can do every day to make a positive impact on how I'm closing out 2020. And so what I decided to do is starting October 3rd, I'm going to be hosting the 90 Day Notes Challenge, and I'm going to be posting it on my Instagram account account and also on my Twitter account. There are links to those in the description below. And I'm also going to be sending out regular emails for the 90-Day Notes Challenge to help you see and understand how impactful and how, like, once you get used to it, how easy creating durable permanent notes can be. I want to thank Woven for being the sponsor of my YouTube channel this past month and obviously this video as well. Woven is an intelligent calendar for busy professionals. It's one that I have just gotten so much use out of. I can't believe that I wasn't using it before this summer because I said it helps me with my time blocking, it helps me with my time tracking. For example, with this notes challenge, I'm blocking out time to read. I'm also blocking out time to review automatically in my Woven calendar. I'm also using tags to make sure that I'm spending at least 30 minutes a day on reading and note-taking so that I can stay committed and consistent with this notes challenge that we've— we're going to do for the last 90 days. So make sure that you check them out. I guarantee that if you watch the video that I put together a couple of weeks ago on Woven and give it a little bit of time to set up and transfer everything over, connect it with Google Calendar, Outlook, you are going to see a similar improvement improvement in the effectiveness and speed with which you use a calendar so you can get back to the work that matters in your life. Thanks again to Woven, and please check them out and thank them for supporting this channel. So I've been thinking about this because the note-taking has been this mind-blowing creative experience for me, and it seems like there's a lot of energy around like, let's just, let's just finish, let's just get 2020 over with and move into 2021. And so I wanted to create like a daily rhythm and a daily challenge for myself to take quality notes and share them with you about really anything. I mean, it sounds crazy a little bit, right? That just taking better notes, taking smart notes, can change your creative output, can change your life. Yeah, that— I almost can't believe I'm saying it, but it's true. Because how often do we waste time? Do we get anxious? Do we get worried? Do we give up on a project or a task because we feel like we're starting from scratch, we're starting from zero? And that— it has happened to me. It's one of the things that, you know, continually has frustrated me about creative output. It's a challenge that I need to overcome, have needed to overcome in so many videos and emails. And blog posts and podcasts and whatever it is, just like, okay, what am I going to talk about today? And when you are taking these notes, then you can just have like one spark of an idea, or you can just flip through notes and be like, ah, this is a thing that is resonating with me. Or as I am taking notes throughout the day, throughout the week, now I'm not starting from zero anymore. It's like, okay, it's time to make a video. What have I tagged? What kind of notes have I made that will help with videos, that will help with this content on time management, on organization, on note-taking, on bullet journaling? I have all of these notes now. I can just assemble them. That's all I have to do is like create almost like a, like a Lego spaceship. I just need to put things together. I just became so excited for what I get to create in the future and how much more I think I'll be able to create because I won't be spending as much time like researching in the moment or like trying to figure things out while they're happening. I, I already like, I just kind of take it out of the second brain, to use Tiago's, you know, metaphor. It's so powerful, it's so cool, and I want you to practice this along with me. That's why we're doing the #90DayNotes challenge. When you are practicing effective note-taking, you're creating these durable permanent ideas that you can gather and collect at any different time to assemble ideas or projects, blog posts, videos. Anything that I want to do can now start with collection of notes that I'm assembling. So my goal personally is at the end of each day to create one new durable permanent note that can become a part of my second brain, my own personal notes. And this is just a few that I can go to and start to think like, okay, now that I'm starting to have 20 notes, 50 notes, 100 notes that allows me to like not start from the blank page anymore, to just start to like assemble a piece of content like I would assemble like a set of Legos. It's just like, okay, I need— just need that note here and that here. I'm going to add some connective tissue and a couple other like little ideas that just kind of came to me in the moment. And then bang, I've got a YouTube video. The basic thing is, is most of these notes are done while I'm reading. It might also be just like an idea comes to me. And I will first take just a simple note or highlight or write in the margin of the book. So this is what's known as fleeting or fast notes. We do this a lot in our bullet journals as well. We just take like a quick note on something. That part might not be a big stretch for you. That might be something that you're really used to when you're reading or taking notes in your bullet journal. But that's not specifically like an effective note. It's not a durable or permanent note, and that's okay. What we need to do next that's going to turn this into a useful, durable, permanent note is go back through our notes every few days, whether that's in reading or the Bullet Journal or with the podcast, whatever it might be. Go back through those notes and pick out the ones that still resonate with you, that you want to expand on, or maybe a larger piece of content that you want to summarize. And that becomes the specific, like, permanent note that is something that you want to continue to use and build upon with future content. So usually for me, this comes out of my morning reading or my evening review, where if I see something right away, and I just know this is a thing that is going to matter to me, then I will usually take out a note card and jot down that specific idea and put any like referencing material on the back. Now, there's a lot that we could get into when it comes to effective note-taking. A lot of what I am talking to you about comes from the book How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens. There's a really good chance I destroyed and butchered that name, but you can find a link to his book How to Take Smart Notes in the description below. It's a phenomenal book, one of the most useful I've read in a long time. There are so many different directions to go with this, but what I am doing to practice this, to build my own library of notes, ideas, concepts that I can build upon in the future, is starting October 3rd, 90 days to close 2020, the #90DayNotesChallenge. I would love for you to be a part of it. Go ahead and sign up on my email list. There's a description in the link below.. You can also just follow along with the hashtag or follow along on Twitter and Instagram. Links to all of those things are below. There are going to be additional resources on this. There's going to be another video about this in a few weeks. I can't wait to share it with you. I'm taking a little bit of extra time on it because I just want it to be just mwah, just chef's kiss style video. Something I feel really proud and excited about. But thank you so much for watching this video. Thank you again to Woven for sponsoring my channel over the past month and sponsoring this video as well. If you skipped past that in the beginning. Woven is an intelligent calendar for busy professionals. It has made me a lot more effective and efficient with my calendar blocking, with my time tracking. I made a video about it. You should check it out. But thank you so much to Woven for sponsoring over the past month, and I hope to see all of you in the #90DayNotes challenge over the last 90 days. Of 2020. See you in there. Bye. Hey, hope I'll see you participating in the #90DayNotes challenge. You can follow along on Twitter or on Instagram. Make sure to remember, links in the description below. You can also sign up for my email newsletter and I'll send you reminders and tips. See you there. Bye.