Documentation key for success

everything he needed and he was adequately provided for. Satisfied, the son left for school.
When he arrived the first thing he looked for was where his father had stashed his money and he could not find it.
He wrote back to his father asking where his pocket money was. The father wasted no time in responding but in his response he didn’t mention where the money was. Instead he prompted his son to read his Bible, saying it had all the answers he needed.
The young man looked into the trunk and saw the shining new Bible the father had bought; disappointed he just closed the trunk with a bang.
Again he wrote back his father who similarly responded prompting his son to read the Bible. He got so mad at his father and decided never to write him again. When he got back home he fumed at his father, telling him how irresponsible his father was and how he was disappointed that he had failed him.
The father calmly responded asking his son if he had read the Bible and the young man furiously threw the Bible at a nearby wall, at that moment he suddenly froze as he saw notes flying out of the Bible.
The moral of the story the dear Major shared with the boys at the school was that most of the answers man look for are in the Bible, but he never accesses them because he is lazy to read. The young man spent the whole term without pocket money yet he had it right on front of him.
We borrow the moral of this story in this article and extend it to say many have missed the mark of success because of failure to document and keep written evidence of their activities.
A joke goes the rounds even in our dear Africa that if you want to hide anything, put it in a book.
It is sad that some of us have accepted that as a race we have the minimum interactions with books, thus the least affinity for writing and reading. However, for any man who desires to succeed in life documentation should become a habit. You cannot reach success milestones without documentation.
Documentation is simply the practice of putting into record details of activities undertaken. They can be kept in the form of written notes, receipts, invoices, pictures, tapes and CDs to mention just some of them. At times documentation is as simple as filing already prepared papers in a file or cabinet.
To drive the point home, ask yourself the following question. Are you able to account for your monthly spending to the last detail accurately without struggle? For most people the answer is no!
However, you cannot be financially successful if you fail to account for your income and expenditure. This does not even require tedious tasks or being an accountant. It just requires a drawer where you keep all your receipts and a book where you write all income and expenditure.
Whenever you need you can make reference to these sources of records and be able to clearly see where your money is coming from and where it is going.
Our families and nations have failed to preserve our history at times because of failure to document. Imagine how many books we have on our cultures and how much we know about other nations.
As we speak right now there should be some people who are keeping records of events happening in our families and societies for our future generations to have a clear picture of their past.
How many families can trace back their family tree accurately? Very few, but it need not be kept in memory. It just has to be put down and documented!
If, for instance, you become successful today and people ask you about your life story are you able to easily and accurately give it to people or it is going to be a mental reconstruction of the story from your memory?
If you do not want your success to be short- lived you simply need to develop a habit of documenting each and every thing you do. It will help you trace your mistakes and how to solve them and even support continuity in your absence.
Till next week guys, God bless you all.
l The writer is a motivational speaker. He can be contacted on [email protected].