The messy middle of taking notes

Paper. Notebook. Apple Notes. Bear. Google Sheets (yes).

I’ve tried them all. Never stuck with one. At some point, I always lose clarity. Notes pile up. I see them, but I don’t read them.

Mostly, I have two constraints:

• Keep the information minimal to avoid the gas plant scenario.
• Keep the design simple: I simply don’t use tools whose design is messy.

For a while, I kept chasing the best framework possible to remember things, help me prioritise and delegate topics, etc. I even looked at established methods such as ... take a deep breath ... the Zettelkasten method.

Too technical. Too impersonal. I don’t want to read a documentation just to write notes.

So I found a solution using Notion. Honestly, it could be any tool. The real point is minimalism: keeping my dock clean and my number of apps low.

My goal was to get everything on a single page. No scrolling allowed. No tags. No colours.

Then comes an idea inspired from basket-ball (I love this sports by the way, it's a show and I love how they use data to take decisions).

Honestly, I'm not enough of a fan to clearly tell you the exact use of these clipboards but I like the idea that they are the main support during a basket-ball game. They’re simple enough for everyone to read, useful only in the moment.

This is the parallel I like to draw in my day-to-day as a manager: how do you help a team perform better in a timeframe?

So here's the clipboard lookalike I've been using for some weeks and that prove to be good enough for my needs:

Here's how I use it:

• Reminders: small tasks I need to do this week.
• Low-hanging fruits: easy wins, often delegated.
• Asks: topics I expect answers on from the team.
• Health: team feedback or personal observations I log, with solutions if something’s off.
• Team: management tasks I own.
• Thoughts: quick reflections, often to discuss with my manager.

I also keep a subpage called “Retrospective,” where I write month by month about what I did. It helps me spot the highlights of the year and prepare for my annual review.

This digital clipboard is far from perfect but it works. It helps me keep focus on what's really important so I don't overload the page with much information. It allows me to use it actually instead of storing endless notes I’ll never read again.

What's your story with note-taking?