Radio Show Planning: Let’s Go Old-School

If there’s note-taking or a writing project to be done do you first reach for tech? I do. If it can be done with my laptop and the awesome Evernote it will. I like clean, neat and organized — and tech does this well. But researchers tell us that messy might be better:

“Words crossed out or corrected, bits scribbled in the margin and later additions are there for good, leaving a visual and tactile record of your work and its creative stages.”

So today I’m tossing aside the tech to talk about old school radio show planning. To do this I’m going with a Field Notes notebook I found on Amazon. What I like:

• It’s very portable, and very distraction-free. If you want to preview or add to tomorrow’s show clock as you sit in a doctor’s waiting room, it’s actually faster to slide this notebook out of your bag than it is to unlock your phone and launch Evernote. And with paper there’s no chance a game of Angry Birds will interrupt your train of thought.

• It’s wide enough for both the show clock and the hot topics. What are the four or five things your listeners need to know during their drive to work, or their drive home? List them on the right side. As the article I linked to states, it’s good to scribble and get creative. Try a hand-written box here or a star there.

• It’s got history. In other words, the short history of your show is just a page flip or two away.

• It doubles as a thing you can take to meetings. If you wear two or three hats at your station, use the front side of your pages for show planning, then flip the notebook on its back and use the back sides for promotions or sales meeting notes.

What are your tips or tricks for planning your show each day?