Sir Richard Branson Proves the mighty power of the lowly notebook

I'm a chapter or two into Sir Richard Branson's latest book and seeing yet again how powerful his simple practise is of keeping a notebook for all his meetings, ideas, lists and life. This practise continues to serve him well and yet again I am forced to concede the simple practicality of his system.

Ever since I read "Losing my Virginity" his first book, I have been trying to work out how to achieve his success with notebooks with firstly a Palm Treo then my iPhone... but the fact is that the organic immediacy and handiness of a notebook trumps all...

Over the years I have cycled in and out of periods using notebooks for a number of reasons...

What really stands out in this latest book is his discipline in writing down notes after meetings and also some thing he alluded to in this latest book... he talks about how he recalls details from months ago to use in meetings so he must practise the use of carrying the last 2 or 3 notebooks with him at any given time as a reference...

So with the lessons learned under my belt i am going to try to fine tune my take on the Branson Notebook system by doing the following:

• Keep up to 3 months of notebooks with me all the time. 
• Make a point to do detailed notes and action items from each meeting or important phone call 
• Try not to use my notebooks for roughing and planning so much as documenting and defining... 

Looking back at my notebooks, the pages are full of half drawn patent drawings, random and never finished to do lists and rough scrawls of numbers or words that have no context or "meat" to them.

Let's see how far I get with this system.... with a tip-o-the-hat to the brilliant Sir Richard Branson..