The importance and value of note taking for me
I’m not an academic writer or a book author, but writing is an essential part of my work as CEO of Buffer and is growing in importance as we scale. Increasingly my job is more about communicating my ideas clearly (vision, mission, strategy, suggestions, corrections, feedback, etc), and I’ve been finding throughout 2020 and 2021 that the more regularly I can write memos to the team, the more effective I am as a CEO and the more aligned all the work across the organization is to my vision for the company. Related: You should be proud of the work your team does, but it should not always be what you would do.
In early 2021 I read the book ⚟ How To Take Smart Notes and it was very eye-opening and inspiring. It helped me realize how I could change just a few habits and get much more out of the already strong note taking habit I have had in place for perhaps a decade or more. I was reminded of Delicious, way back in the day, and how I ended up being somewhat of an encyclopedia of knowledge that I had top of mind and could rattle off to people. And I think that genuinely helped me in the early days of Buffer, and I had been craving that type of feeling again.