Several years ago, I worked at a job where one of my coworkers kept a spiral notebook as a “message and communication log”—it was such a handy way to keep track of all the incoming messages she received, as well as messages forwarded that I adopted the technique. I thought I might pass it along to you this morning, in case you are looking for a simple way to keep track of all your telephone conversations, messages and communication in your home business…
She just used an inexpensive spiral notebook—the kind that you can get 10 for a dollar in August and September with 70 or so pages of lined paper. Instead of writing her phone messages on individual snippets of paper, she would put all her messages in the notebook, along with the date and time of the call. She’d leave plenty of room to write any notes about returning the call, decisions made, follow-up notes, etc. Since she kept the notebook until it was full, it ended up being a chronological log of work she had done. She could then go back and look up information (phone numbers, dates, notes, etc.) rather easily to see what had been decided or where a “phone tag” situation was.
She then wrote “Phone Log” across the front in black Sharpie, along with the date range and kept the logs. Since adopting her “technique,” I’ve found that I’m able to keep quite a bit of information in one tidy place. How much time each notebook holds will depend on your business, of course, and how much work you do by telephone. I find that one notebook can now last me about six months, but there have been times when 1-2 months was more the norm for each notebook. The great thing is that you will not only have all the information (phone numbers, contact information, etc.) but it also gives you a good way of keeping track of work for your records so you can see what you’ve accomplished, or recreate work if you should need to for your taxes or for some other reason.
See Also: The First Rule of Home Business–Keep a Record of Everything and How Are You Keeping Your Records?