I began the process of journaling and note taking many years ago, shortly after I became a follower of Christ. Initially the process included writing down my reflections from my reading in the Scriptures as well as the things that I was praying about. The process helped me clarify my thinking and helped me to begin to see the pattern of how God was guiding me and teaching me. Later, I began to capture as much of my thinking, questioning, and ideation as I could.

Our business and work lives run at such a pace that we rarely have time to reflect, think, much less remember what we were thinking about a day ago. Writing in a notebook has helped me capture numerous insights and inspirations over the years. The act of jotting a note to myself is a way of exercising stewardship of the ideas and insights that God gives me and of cultivating them.

Many times the notes are no more than doodles. Rough, unpolished, and unfinished thought fragments and seeds of ideas. But capturing them gives me the ability to go back and develop them further. I’m convinced that most of us have more valuable ideas float past us and through our minds each day than we can imagine. Capturing what you are seeing and learning and dreaming is essential. Therefore I believe that the simple notebook – inexpensive, handy, and flexible – is an indispensable business and personal learning tool.

Over the years I’ve experimented with many types of notebooks, but I confess that over the last few years I’ve become addicted after stumbling upon the simple but elegant notebooks produced by Moleskine. In spite of all the technology at my fingertips, there is something satisfying and simple about carrying around one of these notebooks to capture notes, thoughts, and ideas. It’s fast. It requires no boot up time. It’s permanent. It requires no power source. And it brings out creativity in me that I don’t get when I sit in front of a screen. It’s the perfect right brain tool for a left brain world.

I use one as a journal and repository of my ideas. As I read or reflect, my thoughts are captured there. Using these and other notebooks I have a record of my ideas, do-lists, readings, questions I’m thinking about, recipes, illustrations, reflections from my reading of the Scriptures, prayer requests, and a lot of what I call “thought fragments” or “brain fodder.”

I also carry a separate one to record my business thinking, goals, do-lists, and notes from dialogue with colleagues.

If you are a fan, here are a few links that I’ve come across where people are sharing their Moleskine “hacks” as they search for better ways to GTD (Get things done!) Here are some photos of some extreme hacks as a user shows how he is experimenting to make the notebook more usable. Here are some basic tips for formatting the notebooks to be searchable and linked. And lastly, here are some ideas about using the Moleskine to help you GTD.

Pick one of these up at the local bookstore. Don’t be afraid of messing it up. Just keep it with you and write down what you are seeing, thinking, questioning, learning, and dreaming.

For me, over the years, this simple act of note taking has been one of the most valuable in stimulating my spiritual and professional growth and effectiveness.