I truly don’t know why it took me so long to figure out I was destined to become a journalist: I was raised by two journalists, I’ve always gotten good grades in English classes, and I often take notes during conversations. All pretty big clues, I’d say!
While I was always a note-taker, I really honed my skills in that area when I got to journalism school. For the entire first year of our program, we were not allowed to make recordings of our interviews, and instead had to just take notes (either handwritten or typed). This was meant to teach young journalists how to take good notes quickly, and while it was wildly annoying, it worked – I graduated nearly a decade ago but am still pretty good at summarizing key points of a conversation in hastily scribbled notes, and grabbing pull quotes verbatim as they come. It’s a useful skill to me constantly – so constantly that I don’t even understand how other people function without frequent note-taking!
I don’t take notes during every conversation, to be clear. I’m not pulling out my notebook when I chat with a barista or a shop clerk (unless they drop an intriguing movie recommendation). And I don’t typically take notes when talking to friends in-person, because some people find it rude or distracting.