You NEED to start a Question Notebook
When I was just 20 years old I spent a few years living away from home as a Christian Missionary. During that period I had the chance to work with other missionaries and teach Gospel lessons to hundreds of incredible people. I also had the chance to receive significant training on teaching and leadership during this time. I share this because it was during that time when I really started to recognize the power of ‘good questions’ and started trying to improve my question asking skills.
I noticed that every time I worked with another certain missionary, the lessons we taught went extra well. Whenever he was present in a training meeting, that training seemed more valuable to the rest of us. It was like he thought and communicated on a deeper level than I did. I wanted to know what made him different than me, so I started paying closer attention to everything he said. Questions! That was the difference. He used questions more effectively than I’d ever heard before. His questions elicited more engaging conversation. His questions helped others feel comfortable enough to ask their own questions. His questions were powerful and noticing this made me respect him a lot.
After having this realization I started making a habit to pull out my pocket notebook and write down every time I noticed a good question being asked. Sometimes it was a word for word powerful question. Other times I just jotted down what made a certain question stand out, whether it was the wording, the timing, the presentation, etc. Eventually, I started thinking ahead and drafting some questions of my own to use in lessons or trainings (or plain old conversation) myself.
The act of writing these observations in my ‘question notebook’ became a tool that helped me become a better teacher and leader. Of equal importance, I noticed that it helped me become a better lifelong student as well. My mind was staying more active as I wondered what else I could/should ask about rather than just passively listening. Using my question notebook helped me compile useful data and turn good ideas into actionable habits over months and months of practice.
All these years later, I still use a notebook to write down questions before almost every meeting that I am involved with. I continue the practice of recognizing good questions when I hear others use them. Although I still have a long way to go before I’ll feel like a master questioner myself, the question notebook habit has helped me actually progress my questioning skills far beyond the countless other fleeting good intentions that have bounced in and out of my mind over the years.
Starting your own question notebook is a must for anyone that truly wants to develop the valuable habit of asking deliberate questions. I suggest you pick up a simple notepad (or start a new electronic note dedicated to questions on your smartphone notes app), keep it simple, and start today!
DO NOT put pressure on yourself about committing to a new journal. Just Take Notes.
No need to be fancy, just write down every question related thought you have.
Whether you choose to make an ongoing note on your smartphone, or use a small physical booklet, just give yourself somewhere to start making notes about questions. Whenever you hear a good question by someone else, write it down. Whenever you hear a bad question (or missed opportunity to ask a good question), make a note of it. Whenever you are headed into an important meeting or phone call, write down a DQ that you can use during the appointment. Whenever you learn something new about question thinking, write it down.
This isn’t going to be a lasting journal that you leave for your posterity. No one else will ever care if you make a thousand illegible scribbles, or if you accidentally miss two weeks without writing anything down. DO NOT put pressure on yourself about committing to a new journal. Just Take Notes. You will be surprised how much there is to write notes about from day to day when you start looking for information. If you let it engage your mind, it will become an enjoyable habit not a burden to write these notes.
This practice is the best way to start shifting your mindset to think about and recognize deliberate questions. In the future I will help you define which types of questions are more valuable, which questions are truly DQ’s vs convenient questions, and even how to think about and use questions without having to write things down in a notebook all the time. Until then, don’t overcomplicate things. If you have a thought that involves questions in some way, write it down in your cool new question notebook!
As you use a question notebook and pay attention to how questions are (and are not) being used in the real world, you will become a respected powerful questioner.
Simply learning and thinking about the value of using deliberate questions will never make you a master questioner. Society has been training you since childhood to focus on answers and to ask fewer and fewer questions. I promise you will not just wake up one day and reverse that mindset because you read an interesting blog post about the power of questions. A question notebook can serve as a catalyst to develop this new habit and to stand out in a crowd of regular people who think that answers are more important than questions.
To learn more about why Deliberate Questions Matter, and how to master them, join our DQM community today to receive weekly questioning tips and suggestions.
