The Key Ponderer

Journaling every single day at work (best done at the end of the day), in addition to writing down events that happened, decisions taken, meetings with team, stakeholders, and bosses, tasks completed in a Google Docs document (personal) goes a long way in clearing out our memory and our ability to recall tasks, things, happenings easily – even after years! You could either write at the top of every hour, or once at the end of the day (if things to note are less).

You could also record your personal time off, the leaves you’ve taken along with the reasons, any WFH days, and other important stuff,

Just ensure to date your writings so you can revisit them later whenever you want. Here’s a sample snapshot to begin with:

If you want to learn a quick way to insert date/time into your Google Document, I created a video outlining the steps. You can watch it by clicking on that link which’ll take you to my Tech Library TV YouTube channel.

How to Insert Date / Time / Long Date into Google Docs  (opens in a new tab)

Cheers, and good luck!

Sharing is caring – it also makes you look smart. Maintain a Google Sheets file to record anything you come across the internet in your field that is intelligent and share-worthy. In your private spreadsheet, write down the title and its URL – start sharing these findings with your co-workers and bosses on a regular basis with a disclaimer to ignore the message if they are already aware. You choose the medium – could be email, a chat message through Slack or MS Teams or even in your WhatsApp group if you are maintaining one.

Better yet, add a reminder to your Outlook calendar (or any calendar you use) to remind yourself to share it every third Thursday of the month or fourth Friday of the month. Definitely, don’t do it on Mondays, because people are relatively busier and tend to forget what they do on Mondays and are comparatively more relaxed during Thursdays and Fridays in a typical 5-day working week. Remember to share it only “during” the day towards the end of your workday, rather than sending it across at the very start of the day.

To take it a step further ahead, these tasks could also be scheduled in advance with tools like Buffer if you are targeting social media, so you don’t even have to remember. This can be scheduled in Outlook too if you are into emails. And in Slack too.