The Daily Carnage

You can’t analyze and synthesize what you can’t remember. But in an era of multi-tasking, Zoom calls, and notifications, how can you sharpen core skills like note taking?

💬 Paraphrase:

No, not parrot-phrase. 🚫🦜 A parrot can repeat words without understanding them. Paraphrasing requires comprehension.

For exact quotes, rely on recordings and AI transcripts. For understanding, put notes in your own words.

💡 Ideate:

Don’t transcribe. React. Record more than what you hear, jot down ideas sparked by what you hear. Use a different color, placement on the page, or a simple symbol (like an exclamation point) to distinguish those sparks of inspiration or ideas you want follow up on.

✍️ Ditch the keyboard:

For increased focus, comprehension, and retention, create your notes by hand rather than typing them. Allow enough white space for indents, shapes, arrows, and sketches that capture the relationships between ideas. Invest in writing tools that feel great and work well. (i.e. Pick a pen and notebook you can wax poetic over.)

Alternatively take electronic notes with a stylus. Paper-like note taking devices like the reMarkable are a great way to combine the benefits of handwritten note taking with the power of digital tools.

We surveyed some of the sharpest marketers around and almost 75% use hand-written notes all of the time or most of time:

🔁 Review:

Retention is increased by reviewing your notes shortly after they are taken. With the ideas fresh in mind, expand on phrases you jotted down to preserve context that future-you will thank you for. Mark-up and highlight key takeaways.

Or type a summary of your hand-written notes for documentation and to share with your team as needed. (This is also the moment when you have the best chance of deciphering your own handwriting.😉)

Head to the Carney blog to sharpen your listening and remembering skills, too.

With over 5 billion global users engaging across social platforms, the volume of content is staggering.

Algorithms now prioritize interests over connections, and the constant flow of AI-generated content has maxed out users’ ability to process information. To say the least.

The competition for customer attention is tight. Last year, brands averaged 10 posts per day. With a fragmented social landscape and new platforms emerging all the time, how do we adapt our strategies to combat saturation?

• Invest in a mix of original content and trends for algorithm sustainability.
• Calibrate your content with audience preferences. This means understanding what users expect from each platform and keeping an eye on what formats are performing well.
• Focus on content that offers educational entertainment. Users prefer this content even to memes, according to data, which helps you build deeper connection.
• You’re probably feeling burnt out. Make time for open-ended, creative thinking, external inspiration, and collaborative exercises that promote different perspectives.
• Shift your success metrics from broad reach to more meaningful engagement. A user sharing your content with a friend is a lot more valuable than a few hundred extra eyeballs (and the algorithms tend to agree).

Check out SproutSocial’s guide for more.