Your Green Notebook - Hacked

My apologies to Joe Byerly, but I've never been a fan of the Army's green notebook. I gave it an honest try early in my career, but its lack of structure led to lost thoughts and tasks, leaving my personal organizational structure in disarray. I abandoned the green notebook early and adopted a Moleskine; today I use a blue one.

So, what was wrong with the green notebook? In retrospect, it wasn't the book itself, it was how I used it. Looking through the earliest green book I still have, one from the Iraq Surge, it seems like an unorganized flow of thoughts, incomplete tasks (boxes not checked), and random meeting notes. There's no system. There's no rhyme or reason. Without a systematic way to put things (thoughts) in and take things (actions) out, the book had little utility. However, there are some amusing pieces of history captured in this green notebook. At one point, I pondered "who the f*ck is JAM?" - an important inquiry, in hindsight. Still, as I thumb through the pages, my impression is that I lacked structure and, therefore, left a lot "on the page."

Over the years, I experimented with various note-taking methods, keeping the best practices and discarding the rest. Today, I use the derivative in my own notebook infrastructure. This article describes the method I use in the hopes you can employ some of the best practices. Here are the steps:

Step #1: Create a Table of Contents.

This is a simple step. Take the first two pages, front and back, and label them "Table of Contents." This space will be important later, even though it looks like a couple of blank pages right now. In the future, use these pages to capture top highlights for easy reference. For example, say you capture notes from your quarterly board meeting on the 19th of December. As you reflect on the important session, go back to the Table of Contents and indicate the page number and event. In this example, it would be "Page 7" and "Quarterly Board Meeting 19DEC." You'll build the entries to your Table of Contents as you go and be ready to rapidly reference key info. Here's an example:

Step #2: Number the Pages.

In step #1, you may have asked yourself how I knew the page numbers. As I crack a fresh notebook, I take about 20 minutes to number each page. The Moleskine I use provides 192 pages and I mess up at least 3 or 4 times while labeling. Having the page numbers makes referencing easy. Additionally, I stick a few page tabs to the front cover so they are available for extra emphasis, as required.

Step #3: Create a good idea parking lot in the back with the last few pages reserved for a reference/index.

The good idea parking lot is a space I use to build on something that occurs to me randomly throughout the day. This allows you space to come back and expand on a thought later, rather than being cut off when you fill in notes for your next meeting. I've used the good idea parking lot to frame out blog posts, command philosophies, and many other random good ideas.

Finally, I leave a page or two at the back for an index or reference. I use this area to capture any info I'll need to rapidly access more than a handful of times. This usually includes hints to codes, passwords, and dates. Just be careful not to write down enough information to compromise sensitive info.

Step #4: Create Month Calendars.

Back to the front of the book, now I create blank calendars for the next 4 months. I use this space to fill in known and concrete upcoming key events. Think birthdays, holidays, and solidified trips or events. These calendars aren't authoritative sources; I do that on a digital calendar. Instead, they are quick reference tools. If someone asks if I am available to speak at an event on the 14th of January, I should have a pretty good idea if it is even a possibility before I investigate further.

Step #5: Last and most importantly, I use a standard daily framework to focus on the same information each and every day.

My notebook is consistent and predictable, but I still have room to capture pages of notes, should I be in a super important session. Again, my notebook is not the authoritative source for the data which goes into my daily framework - I use a digital tool called Notion for this. My notebook allows me to focus on what I need to accomplish today, once extracted from Notion. I transfer these items each evening and review them in the morning, a therapeutic step to focus on what's most important. Here's a breakdown of my daily framework.

• Schedule. In the top half of the left page, I capture my schedule. This is a simple transfer of the events on deck for the day.

• Tasks. In the bottom half of the left page, I write out the tasks I need to accomplish that day. Notion prioritizes my tasks in the following categories: focus, easy, and delegate. Normally, I have no more than 3 of each task type for a total of 9 tasks.

• Task Inbox. In the top half of the right page, I add room for a task inbox. I add the label and skip down to the middle of the page. Instead of actioning each task as it comes to me, I find comfort in "parking" tasks in my inbox. I only action them if they are absolutely on fire. To clarify, the task section is for planned tasks and the task in box is for those tasks I happen upon throughout the day.

• Notes Section. Finally, in the bottom half of the right page, I start my space for daily notes. I am not a huge note taker, so they usually fit on the bottom half of the page. If I go over, I continue to the next page.

So there you have it, my simple hack to make the most of my green book equivalent. Maintaining a predictable pattern helps me to be more productive, thinking less about where information goes and thinking more about the subject at hand. Sound helpful? Give these methods a try today and let me know if you’d like more trips to increase your personal productivity.