Any other consultants out there? I work as a software implementation consultant. At any one time I could be working with, say, 10 groups of internal customers implementing the software for their team. There are emails, IM's, phone calls, meeting notes. Aside from working with the teams, there are core changes that need to be made to the software itself. It's a lot to keep track of.
When I'm working with a team that wants to work with me/on the project, generally things go fine. There is a back and forth dialog and I never have to look more than a few days backwards in emails to keep track of where we are. For the groups that are resistant, busy, or drop off the radar for a while I generally forget about them and have trouble remembering where the project is at. It's not really a problem as in things aren't getting done. It's more of a problem with "OK, I'm re-engaging with this internal customer and I can't remember what we already talked about/tried/implemented/objections/issues..."
How do you guys deal with this? Do you just get really good at taking notes? Do you use a piece of software? I guess OneNote has a lot of what I want, but I don't feel comfortable using a cloud based OneNote, and I can't easily share a OneNote file between the machines that I use for work (which sit on different networks).
Just wondering if anyone out there is in the same situation. Thank you!
But software is just a tool. What it sounds like you really need is a system for keeping all these balls in the air. Without a system, no software is going to solve the problem of failing to remember you need to follow up on things.
This type of work is something I find Getting Things Done very effective for. You don't have to rigidly implement everything the book prescribes, but it does offer a philosophy and a toolkit of processes that you can mix and match to keep your work organized.
Once you have a process, you can implement it in OneNote or index cards, or whatever the heck else feels ergonomic to you.