Live, Laugh, Document
Honestly,
I didn’t get into the business of helping people for the paperwork.
At the same time: live, laugh, document. Right?
I’ve had leaders tell me that I’m making more work for them by telling them they need to be documenting this. And I feel like I’m Jerry Maguire: help me help you.
Because lots of difficult conversations become way more difficult when you do not have documentation.
Documentation has saved me many times.
I document because it’s the right thing to do. But let’s face it: my memory is not that good. Sometimes people want to come back and talk about something that happened four or five years ago. I need more to work with than the confidence that I probably remembered it correctly.
Skipping the notes can feel like a future-me problem. Until I’m future me.
And future me has questions.
When a concern reaches HR, especially when someone is asking about termination, we need to understand what happened and what has already been discussed. We can’t go back and turn an undocumented conversation into a clear record made at the time.
Writing it down is a way to help the people involved—and to stop leaving my future self a mystery to solve.
Earlier in my career, when my work included termination conversations, I dreaded them. If I had looked forward to them, I would have seriously questioned if something was wrong with me as a human. At my core. At my squishy middle core.
Over time, I learned that what helped me was being able to go back and say: on this date, we discussed this. On this date, we discussed this.
I had documentation. I could refer back to what we actually discussed.
That didn’t make the conversation easy. It gave me something clearer to work from.
I have a sign in my office that says, “But did you document it?”
Some people have inspirational quotes. I have a follow-up question.
It’s there for me, too. Because future me is going to need more than “I’m pretty sure we talked about this.”
Reflections
- What have you discussed that still lives only in someone’s memory—and what would future you wish you had written down?
- Would your notes help someone understand the conversation—including what the other person said?
- If you needed these notes a year from now, would you know where to find them?
Toolbox: Leave yourself a clear record
- Write what happened. Record the date, the specific concern, and what you actually discussed. Describe what you observed rather than guessing someone’s intentions.
- Include their side. Capture the person’s explanation, questions, and any context they shared. Notes should help you remember the conversation, not just your part in it.
- Name what comes next. Note expectations, support offered, who will do what, and when you will check back.
- Keep it in the right place. Use your organization’s approved process and storage. For an employment decision, involve the appropriate HR support. A number of documented conversations is not an automatic rule for what happens next.
- Give future you a useful subject line. A date and a specific topic are easier to find than “Quick chat.” Leave yourself a clue that will still make sense when the conversation is no longer fresh.
Live, laugh, document. Preferably while we still remember what happened.
