by Ryan McKeen
It’s all about training. I’m so used to writing notes on everything. Often on the back of scrap paper or on post it notes. The problem is these notes sometimes get missed placed or I can’t find them the moment that I need them.
Plus they’re a giant waste of paper.
My new thing is to email myself those notes. That way they are easily searchable from everywhere and there’s no pesky indexing involved at all. When I want something, I simply search my email which is always open. and I have access to those emails on my phone.
I’ve also taken to having staff email me with assignments as opposed to handing me pieces of paper. Again, it saves paper and is simply more efficient because it’s readily searchable and available to me anywhere.
The problem is that old habits are hard to break. I need to put the post it notes away. Perhaps lock them in one of my desk drawers for a few weeks because my inclination is to reach for them when I need to make a note.
Do other attorneys frequently email themselves notes in lieu of making handwritten notations? Did you struggle to make the change?
Absolutely! I email myself notes about everything from work-related “things to do” to personal appointments to shopping lists to any number of things. I then, often times, print out the emails, which, obviously, does not save paper.
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I’m not an attorney, so YMMV, but:
Evernote, Evernote, Evernote!
With this service you can email yourself notes, tweet yourself notes, SMS yourself notes, capture website snapshots as notes, or just plain add them by hand. You can even photograph documents and have them automatically OCRed.
That being said, paper notes aren’t a bad thing if you write in a way that will have meaning to you later and transcribe them at first opportunity. It may seem wasteful to write and then transcribe, but for me, it’s faster to write a quick note and retype it later on a computer keyboard than it is to type that same note on a phone (it also gives you another pass to not transcribe notes that are useless in retrospect).
I suggest looking up ubiquitous capture for more info – there are many ways to do it, but do it.
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I will write notes on just about anything–sticky notes, envelope backs, bills, etc. And, I try to the handle these list very quickly or I transcribe them (or scan) to my SaaS “To-Do” list. Thus, I am able to access my lists from any computer or smartphone. I use my To-Do list instead of email. Good luck! Mark Cobb
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