How Note-Taking Can Help You Track Your Progress and Where to Start



When in the middle of a complex project, it`s easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of work you must complete before reaching the end. Simply diving in without noting your progress can leave one feeling as though their accomplishments over the course of a project do not matter. However, taking notes to track your progress makes the entire experience much more manageable and finish lines more achievable.

As human beings, we seek encouragement for the hard work that we do, and by documenting our progress, we can clearly see our evolving performance to ascertain whether the approaching results are satisfactory. If not, we can implement changes based on what we learned from previous errors. Read on to learn more about how you can track your progress using notes to better yourself and future projects.

Your Notes Are Evidence of Growth

Every time you complete a project, whether you notice it or not, your skill-set and knowledge base grows. It can be easy to have feelings of inadequacy when working on multi-leveled projects that require many steps before completion; however, taking notes and documenting your progress contributes to higher feelings of accomplishment as you see how you have grown and evolved from the beginning to the end of the project.

In the beginning, you may have had little knowledge of the project itself, but as you research and apply newly learned information while you work, you do acquire a great deal of knowledge. Thus, by taking notes that show the evolution of your growth, you can gain confidence for future projects.

Track Your Development and Make Changes

Additionally, the growth that you document also provides you with opportunities to make changes that can improve your overall performance. For example, while working on a project, your initial notes may differ drastically from the information you note towards the end of the project. So, with a reference base of notes, you can analyze this difference and implement changes.

Small Achievements Matter

As already mentioned, we crave encouragement and praise when working on projects, yet we rarely celebrate small achievements. By noting your progress, no matter how small, you will feel encouraged to persevere as well as be assured that the work you are producing is satisfactory.

Where to Begin

Break Down Large Goals into Smaller Tasks

The best way to track your progress by taking notes is to break down large tasks into smaller, more easily achievable goals. For example, if you’re creating a PowerPoint showcasing a new product that you will present before your company, rather than becoming overwhelmed with the information you must include, begin by outlining the project in your notes. This way, you can focus on individual steps instead of the project as a whole, thus minimizing feelings of stress.

Document Everything

Of course, to adequately visualize your growth, you must document every step of your project. This includes new information, your thoughts, small achievements, and your plans for each additional step.

Use Past Outcomes to Make Future Improvements

Upon completion of a project, your accumulated notes contribute to a knowledge base of information that you can utilize in the future. Therefore, review past instances of mistakes and success to make improvements to new projects.

Note-Taking with Lightmap

We are confident that these note-taking tips for tracking your progress will contribute to higher levels of success in the future. As modern times call for solutions, the best way to take notes is to use intelligent computer note-taking apps such as Lightmap.

In addition to tracking your progress using our intuitive and powerful note-taking software, users can also collaborate with others and share their work using Lightmap Cloud.

For more information about the app, see our website.