What to do with business cards

- Business cards aren't going away any time soon. There's something tangible and meaningful about handing someone a piece of well printed card stock with your name and picture on it. It's a physical reminder to that person that you met and had a conversation. And it's an invitation to continue that conversation in the future. Yet many people trip up when they are handed these business cards. The productivity process breaks down. Let's take a look at the workflow, so to speak, of receiving a business card.

First, after thanking the person for the business card, I have a choice to make. The choice is which gathering point am I going to put this business card into. A gathering point is where you accumulate items until you deal with them later during your scheduled processing time, per my course Time Management Fundamentals. The gathering point you choose is up to you, but I would recommend one of two options. Number one is your portable inbox, which you should be carrying with you at all times.

Number two is to put it into your digital notebook. For instance, when someone hands me their business card, I typically take a picture of it and store that picture as a note in my OneNote file. With either option, you have a reminder during processing time that you need to do something with this card. Then we walk the card through what, when, where processing. What is the next step? Well, if the next step is that I want to reach out to this person and want to continue the conversation, let's say they were interested in hiring me for speaking.

Then the next action might be to reach out to them. Then I move to when, which means determining when it will be done. I'll schedule time on my calendar or create a task reminder, or even take care of it right then. Prior to putting it in the trash, I ask myself the question: Do I need to keep this contact information? If there was no need for follow-up, then the answer is no so the card goes in the trash. If there was a follow-up action, then I can either enter that information myself or forward the picture of the business card to my assistant, who will enter it for me.

Some people also use business card scanners, although in my experience they aren't 100% reliable, and the hassle usually far outweighs the benefit gained from using them. In this way, the business card served its purpose. It reminded me of the person, it reminded me of meeting the person, and moved us toward the next step of working together. Let business cards serve their purpose as reminders of action.

After they do that, remove business cards from your workflow to reduce clutter.