Reflection, context and a place to organize things...

Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App says; "To be an impact player in business, you simply have to know more than most other people know. That means taking the power of ideas seriously, reading books voraciously, and developing a system of organizing what you've learned." Ain't that the truth! The hardest part, harder than making time to actually read voraciously, is developing a system that works for you.

We all have hundreds or even thousands of stories in our "mental archive." And more stories are piling up all the time. In fact, there are so many stories unfolding all around us, it's an embarrassment of riches. But just like the last 20 jokes you've heard, it's nearly impossible to remember your stories when you need them. That's the reason that I created the "Win Book." The Win Book draws its power from the fact that it captures your personal experiences, going far beyond a personal planner or PDA. Not that those devices aren't useful...they are. But the Win Book is designed to capture business information and context, in a way that the information can be turned into stories to increase your performance.

The Win Book takes organization to the next level and turns the experiences and artifacts of your life into your personal competitive advantage. Your Win Book can take shape as a file, a notebook, a day planner, a daily journal and scrapbook (like mine), or any number of different forms; the key is finding the form that is most useful for you. It's not important that you use it exactly as I describe here. What's most important is that the Win Book provides an unedited central archive of your successes, failures (yes, even failures), thoughts, and conversations as they occur, and concepts that need to be acted upon. The Win Book is not the place for editing and judging—if it strikes you, include it.

The Win Book is not just a mechanism to help us reflect on what's important, it is a device to spur us to action—well-informed action that is directed and focused.

As a tool for leaders, the Win Book is a flexible solution that combines a number of elements. It can include any combination of the following elements (include the illustration called "Where We Collect Stories" on the first page of the Win Book page):

• A central archive of daily conversations, meetings, and presentations
• To-do lists
• Notes about employees, their successes and failures, and needs for development
• Client meetings, notes, and associated action items
• Marketing ideas and action plans
• Articles, clips, or pictures that need to be remembered or put to immediate use
• Illustrations and models that apply to your business challenges
• Ideas, thoughts, and plans regarding your work and life
• Stories and news clippings that you find interesting or impact you in some way
• A simple index of what is contained in the book

By way of example, take a look at a few samples from some of my Win Books. As you will see, some of these thoughts and notes have transformed into short stories and anecdotes that have helped me improve my own performance (and some of the stories even found their way into my book!).