Last week I started a series on 7 Basics to Include In Your Sketch Notes.

I talked about how I like to Divide & Conquer my blank page so that it’s not mocking me with it’s flawless, pure and untouched fibers challenging me to draw designs worthy of it’s standards.

Ok, that’s a little dramatic.

Nonetheless, I like to divide my page into sections.

First we talked Titles.

Today we are talking dates.

Dating is fun. I love it.

I date all the time. Well, there was a time I didn’t date. I can’t even tell you how long that lasted.

You have to admit that was funny.

Fine. I date my work.

Do you remember being in school and having to write your name and date in the top right hand corner? Yeah, that stuck with me for an eternity.

As a matter of fact, I still feel uneasy if I don’t have a name and date on my work.

Adding a date is good on a few different levels. At the very least, it time stamps your work. I use my sermon journal for every sermon I hear – including podcasts and teaching series that I buy with books. That means that although my journal entries are in chronological order (except that one time 2 pages stuck together – that page will forever be blank), they don’t necessarily go in order.

For instance, when we are serving in a ministry, I can’t do notes during service. I have to wait for the podcast to come out. Sometimes, in the day or two I’m waiting, I’ve already listened to another sermon. Therefore, the page that should be Sunday morning, might be some other message.

I know this because I date my work.

Dating also helps when you’re attending a conference.

The conferences I attend usually have a few day sessions, some afternoon breakout sessions and then an evening service. This can easily turn a 4 day conference into a 13 page journaling session. In order to know what day, date and session I’m on, I log it.

For conferences, I usually get fancy and doodle a design for the date or session. This helps me get excited for each of the sessions. Plus, I can do them ahead of time so I still have a title/date for when there’s no break in between sessions.

There are so many options with doodling dates and session numbers. You can tailor them into your title or you can keep them separate.

Most of the time I just plain, old write it in – just like school days.

Are you particular about dating your work? How do you write the date – extravagant or straight up? Comment below.