The Importance Of Putting Things In Writing
Protect yourself legally
Putting things in writing can provide legal evidence of agreements and discussions. It prevents third parties from claiming that they didn’t agree to certain terms or that you didn’t provide them with certain information. This could prevent lawsuits or allow you to build a better defence if you do get sued.
Reduce reliance on memory
Few of us can remember every detail of a conversation. This can lead to important points, facts and rules being forgotten. Putting things in writing gives you something to reference to jog one’s memory. It could also be a useful resource for other people who were involved in the interaction.
Reduce miscommunication
Sometimes important details can be misinterpreted. Putting things in writing can clarify exactly what you intended, potentially preventing mistakes from happening as a result of people mishearing things.
Encourage accountability
It’s harder for someone to shift the blame when there is written evidence that they were responsible. By collecting written evidence, you can encourage employees or customers to take accountability for errors.
Examples Of Ways To Put Things In Writing
There are a few ways in which you can start putting information into writing.
- Take notes: During meetings, take notes of important details to refer back to and to provide evidence of things that were said (even if you mishear information, you then have evidence that you misheard it).
- Transcribe speech: You could also pay transcription services to put conversations into writing. This could be a live transcription, or you could record audio of phone calls and meetings to transcribe later. You can pay professional human transcribers to do this or use AI tools.
- Follow up with emails: Another solution is to follow up meetings and phone calls with a summary email. You can even ask the other party to reply to this to confirm that all the information in the email is correct.
- Use contracts: Any major agreement can benefit from a legal written contract. This should clearly outline the terms and conditions of the agreement, and it should be signed by other parties involved. There are software tools to create these contracts yourself, or you can hire a lawyer to help you draft one.
- Create handbooks and guides: Follow up staff training programs by providing a handbook that employees can reference – this could help to minimize mistakes and reduce reliance on having to ask other staff members for reminders of how to do tasks. Similarly, you can create product or service guides for clients to accompany tutorials.
There are many other ways to put things in writing, but the above methods should cover most situations. The key is to get into a habit of consistently recording everything in writing – leaving a written trail of everything protects you at every turn.
