• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Don’t forget your notebook

Published: Wednesday, 04 February 2009

They’re cheap.  They don’t always look very pretty.  You can even get some with a yellow hue!  (And even if you don’t, but you leave them for too long, they develop a yellow hue of their own.)  Richard Branson swears by them - he used his to research for all his published books.  And Dave Allen recommends them.  (Or he would if Palm Pilots weren’t invented…)

Notebooks.  Pieces of paper bound together for you to write on.  What should you write?

Everything you say you’ll do.  In order to be your word, you have to know what you gave your word to.  The more games you are playing in life, the more things you will be giving your word to.  Want to take on more and complete it all with integrity?  Give your word, write it down, do it.

Planning structures for fulfillment.  Have a project in mind?  Jot down the end goal, brainstorm all the tasks that would need to be completed between now and the end goal, set dates by when the tasks will be completed and you have a structure for fulfillment.

Making lists.  Shopping lists, to-do lists, people to call, emails to type, etc.  Helps you batch like-activities together and saves time.

Brain dump.  Anything that’s on your mind doesn’t exist until it’s down on paper - get it down on paper and make it real.  Once it’s down, it frees your mind to think about something else.

Six cents each at the Big W sales at the start of the school year.  Get one.  It’s worth it.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Plates

    "If you have too much on your plate, get a bigger plate." I first heard this when I was doing a leadership course in London in 2009.  Everyone in the...

  • Where are you not looking?

    You’ve brainstormed and tried all the keywords that you could think of in Google, you’ve asked Jeeves, you’ve spoken to your lecturers and you’ve...

  • Impressed

    People are impressed by what they can't do. Hence I'm impressed by discipline.  Someone who can do the same action every day.  Such as swim, run, get...

  • Robogals Asia Pacific SINE 2014

    Robogals Asia Pacific SINE Perth 2014.  120 participants from Australia, Philippines, Japan, New Zealand and China.  Our biggest SINE to date! SINE...

  • Show up

    Woody Allen once said that "eighty percent of success is showing up." To me, that means, you go to the meeting about the project.  You're there...

  • Tune out everyone

    Being concerned with what people think about you makes you unable to contribute your best work to the world.

  • GEDC Diversity Award

    I was awarded the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) Diversity Award for my work with Robogals.  It was sponsored by Airbus.  Here is a photo of...

  • Lifetime goals

    Don't be scared of achieving your lifetime goals.  You can always make up new goals after you've achieved these.

  • Dianne's Garage

    This is how I spend the majority of my time:  Hanging out with my mentor Dianne in her awesome workshop.

  • Success is in the doing

    Even if I know my chances of success are slim because I've been disorganised, have missed deadlines, have generally not followed my own rules for...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top