There is no smart tracker (yet!) for accessing and monitoring your thoughts over time. But you can uncover a lot about your thoughts by keeping track of your daily conversations.
All you need is a process to accurately document them. If you're already taking notes during conversations, that's awesome! But let's take this a step further and create a process for tracking your conversations. The idea is to use digital tools and create a searchable second brain.
A Growing Repository of Thoughts and Conversations
People usually fail to consistently track their conversations and miss the opportunity to reflect, improve, and share their findings with others.
The reasons are simple:
No templates to make note-taking easy
No central digital repository for their notes
No automated tool to transcribe their conversations
You can overcome these problems by using readily available digital tools and frameworks.
Step 1: Forget Pen and Paper. Take Digital Notes.
With digital notes, you can easily search, organize, and restructure your notes.
I use Google Docs and Notion. They sync across all devices so I can take notes no matter where I am. And I can access my notes anywhere anytime.
Step 2: Always Use Templates. Make It Easy.
Predefined templates will simplify your life. Without them, you will not take notes consistently.
I use Notion templates with pre-populated sections that prompt me to take notes before and during a session. The template also has a list of action items and milestones to achieve before the next session.
Step 3: Don’t Just Rely on Your Notes.
I use Google Meet for almost all my meetings, and I use a Chrome extension called "Meet Transcript" to keep a record of my conversations.
I can later use this transcript to complete any missing sections in my notes or look for certain keywords before the next meeting to refresh my mind on previous discussions.
Follow These Steps and You Can
Search your conversations
Reflect on your thought process
Refer to them later and connect the dots
And continually improve yourself