Some of the habits I developed working in a corporate environment have turned out to be very helpful in my entrepreneurial endeavor.
For instance, when I was VP of Product Development for a Fortune 100 company I carefully planned which meetings I would attend each day. I found that a Month-at-a-Glance(r) calendar book was very helpful because there was a square for each day of the month in which to write notes.
I kept a careful calendar of written notes, eventually developing a pattern for planning future dates. I would pencil in commitments such as the meetings I was scheduled to attend, the days in the future when certain tasks had been promised, and dates when reports were due. As days arrived and then passed I went through the calendar booklet changing the penciled-in notes to ink. At the bottom of each day’s notation I wrote the location where I was at that time, thus creating a travel journal as well.
At each of the meetings attended I noted details of the session and names of the other people in attendance. As the meeting progressed I wrote dates assigned for future steps of the task – again in pencil. Then as time passed, I checked the progress on those special projects and after each milestone was reached I again rewrote the entries in ink. Parallel to the “schedule calendar” I used, I also began to keep “journals.” I purchased blank red journal books with one page per day of the calendar. There I made careful notes of what I was working on at the time and the steps taken on each project.
After I was terminated from the large company and opened my own business, I found the calendar and journals were especially important to help me keep control of my business by keeping detailed notes of what was important.
I used the journals to outline plans and draw sketches for every new product worked on, and to detail events that took place in my office such as changes in personnel and other business information. The books were always either near my phone or carried with me on trips.
Now I have 30 years of calendars and journals on my bookshelves and what a nice record of business events they have been – and still are! At one time when I was involved in a lawsuit to defend a patent, I was able to exactly reproduce the steps I had taken in developing the patent for the product in question by looking in my journal.
I know there are more modern ways to keep track of appointments and schedules using your PC or a handheld PDA and these are great for keeping the original notes; but I have found that writing out the steps in these journals has helped me to understand the projects. The journals have been invaluable to me in planning over the years and have helped me many times to understand my project’s goals.
I recommend you use such detailed planning to keep track of your business!
Article – Copyright 2001 Stanley I. Mason. Syndicated by ParadigmTSA
