Stop Typing Notes And Start Writing Them By Hand
Today, we’re talking about Richard Branson’s secret productivity tool and why you need to be handwriting your notes instead of typing them into your computer or tablet. Shocking, I know. What you’re going to learn: The tool Richard Branson claims he could not have built the Virgin Group without My favorite type of notebook The scientific reason why taking notes by hand is better than typing them into your computer or digital device Key Quotes: “The pen is mightier than the keyboard.” Read Full Transcript Dang, I'm feeling productive. How about you? Welcome to the show. I'm Kevin Kruse and I'm sharing tips and advice from my new book, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs. That's got to be the longest book title in history. In the last episode, we covered how George Bush, even while as a sitting president, was able to read 95 books a year. Today, we're talking about Richard Branson's secret productivity tool and why you need to be handwriting your notes instead of typing them into your computer or tablet. Shocking, I know. Hey, first I want to send you a quick start action plan so you can 10X your productivity. All you need to do to get it is send a text message to 44-222 with the word "achieve" or go to the website productivity-podcast.com. Now, let's dive in. It turns out that many, many of the greatest minds in history consider a notebook, a simple notebook, to be one of their prized possessions. Indeed, Richard Branson talks about this a lot. Obviously, Branson's the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, very colorful character. He said once that the little notebook in his back pocket is his prized possession. He said, "I could never have built the Virgin Group to the size it is without those few bits of paper." Billionaire Aristotle Onassis, he was a big shipping magnet. He used to always give advice that he called his Million Dollar Lesson. He said, "Always carry a notebook. Write everything down. That is a million dollar lesson that they don't teach you in business school." Once you kind of know about this notebook secret, you're going to start hearing it everywhere you go. It's like when you buy a Honda Civic and then you see all the other Honda Civics on the road, it's the same kind of thing. I was listening just two days ago to an interview on the Mixergy Podcast with John Lee Dumas. Now, John Lee Dumas, of course, has his own podcast called Entrepreneur on Fire, but he was in the guest chair. He was getting interviewed. He was asked, "So if I called you at 5:30 in the morning, what would you be doing?" He said, "Well, I would be walking around the bay in San Diego, listening to podcasts, and you would see me with my notebook in my hand. I'd be jotting down ideas and takeaways and words of wisdom from the notebook." I'm paraphrasing there. Just two days ago, John Lee Dumas makes $3 million as a solopreneur and he brings up the fact that at 5:30 in the morning, going for his power walk, he's still got that notebook in his hand. People always make fun of me because I'm carrying my little black notebook around. I go out to lunch with friends, it's there. Business meetings, it's there. It's always with me just because you never know when you're going to get an idea, you're going to meet someone, someone's going to say something, and you don't want to rely on your memory. You want to write it down. The only time I break that rule is sometimes if I'm jogging outside or on the treadmill or something, I don't have the notebook on me, but I usually have my smartphone because I'm listening to a podcast or I'm pumping out some music. Sometimes I'll stop and I'll send myself an email, which in general, you don't want to do this as your normal practice, but if you have no other choice, then it's better to just send yourself an...