Reading time: Less than 2 minutes
This idea may sound obvious but you’d be surprised to learn now many people fail to do it: You need to start writing notes to yourself…
This week I delivered a class on how to re-energize yourself after completing a big project. Although my class was aimed at writers, the message applies to just about anyone finishing a major work assignment.
My most important tip? As soon as you’ve wrapped up your project, take the time to think about and write down the lessons you learned, both positive and negative. This is particularly important if the big project is something you might have to take on in future. But it’s also useful even if you never do exactly the same task again.
Here’s why:
- While we’re in the “thick” of a big project, our understanding of all aspects of it is usually sharp and acute. But once the project has ended we start losing track of the details until we can barely remember what’s involved.
- Most of us are exhausted after finishing big projects. We’re anxious to relax and reconnect with family and friends — you know, get back our normal lives. This is perfectly understandable but it only increases the likelihood of our forgetting the lessons we learned.
- When a big project is just finished, others are more likely to be familiar with it, too. If it’s a report, they may have just read it. If it’s an event, they may have attended it. This is the perfect time to collect their feedback and use it to shape our own learning about what we did right and wrong.
If you ever have to do such a project again, you don’t want to repeat your mistakes, do you? And, of course, you do want to repeat the actions or strategies that worked particularly well for you.
That’s why I encourage you to write down what went well and what went badly. Even more important, write it in a place you’ll remember to re-read it before you have to do the same type of project again. I learned this advice from a book (sadly, I didn’t note the name of it) and I’ve followed it rigorously for the last seven years. It’s made an enormous difference to my working life.