President Wilson looks on from my grandfather's 1915 journal.
Taking note of my note-taking helped improve my outlook. A lifetime of writing and I might yet get it right.
My dad kept a to-do list on an index card folded in his wallet. He would retrieve it from the billfold like a fiver, and add to the list or cross something off.
I kept a to-do list in my head. But my bosses tended to reward co-workers who kept action items on paper. "I know you've got it all thought out," one told me. "But what if you get run over by a bus? Then I'd be lost." So now I make plans.
Since my days in college lecture halls I'd recorded what others say in the moment, in detail. It still took some sort of test for me to go back and study my notes. Taking verbatim notes as a reporter required more speed than neatness. I'd hold eye contact with my source, and the pen would float over the notepad as if across a Ouija board, guided by an occult hand. I scrawled every which way, but legibly enough so to transcribe before I forgot the conversation.
When I started in project management, I carried a notebook to meetings. Software may have managed my action items better, but the notebook never needed a recharge or restart. My notes remained very much in the moment, till they met their end in a filing cabinet graveyard.
It was high time to reflect on and organize my thoughts. This was a change of direction for both my penmanship and my process. This was my entry into journaling.
