This summer I wrote about taking notes on a small white board (the type you would use on a college dorm room door) and how that eliminated clutter on my desktop. Along with writing my notes down on a white board, another pastime of mine is to use the much larger white boards for brainstorming exercises and accountability.
This is a collage of past white boards we have had hanging in the OvalEye small office that we create during our brainstorming sessions. Our company is small and family owned and operated, so to ensure we stay on task we generally plan out our meetings ahead of time with an understood purpose, topics to discuss and actions to complete.
When writing down what we discuss I love to use color- you can purchase an array of colors for white board markers now along with different size pen tips. Upon completion I then take a photo of the boards and create a matching email or document that is sent along to those in the meeting. We leave the white board up until the actions are complete, or our next meeting occurs. The documents or emails are used by our team members to cross off actions when they have been completed, write notes down, or to remind us of what we should be focusing on.
This is a practice that larger companies use everyday, but many small businesses fail to adopt either due to space, limited staff, or time. We have found it effective and hope you do too- Happy White Boarding!
