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My approach to taking notes in meetings

blog.witful.com

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Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#11

Post by linker3000 »

I've used this method since the early 1990s:

1) Use no tech.

2) Cornell-inspired note-taking paper with topics in the left margin and speaker names/notes/sub-topics in the main body. There's room for mind maps if you wish.

3) Actions go in the bottom field so they are easy to find later and mark off when done. If you need to reference something in the body notes for follow-up or action (because you don't have time to write something at the bottom of the page), put an A in a circle next to the relevant sentence.

4) Meeting notes are stapled together and filed in chronological order in a ring binder, divided by working group/meeting name or topic. You can then remove a bunch of notes from previous meetings to take into the current one for reference.

Here's a Word doc of my blank Cornell-type paper:

https://github.com/linker3000/Cornell

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#12

Post by logicalmonster »

I think every brain might be wired differently and a different approach might work better for some people.

But if I'm trying to make notes in a meeting, I can't listen to a speaker argue some nuanced point in a meeting while furiously trying to jot things down.

An approach that works for me is to have the meeting and try and pay undivided attention to it, then have 5-10 uninterrupted minutes at the end while everything is in short term memory to summarize it. If somehow I don't remember a point, it's usually not important enough to write down.

I'd say if 2 people in a meeting take that approach and and consolidate their notes at the end, you're going to get a complete picture of what just happened.

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#13

Post by zerop »

I am looking at this witful product UI and I wonder what stops MS to make interfaces like this in office products. Their UX is so awful in most of products. They have huge customer base, data and products to create great experience. Then, why?

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#14

Post by cyberge99 »

dougmwne wrote: post #2

For me, I really like Zoom recording paired with the automatic transcripts. The transcripts help me to find the section of the video I need to review. I wish there was a feature to tie your typed notes into the video timecodes so by clicking on a note I had made, I could jump to the point in the meeting where I had made the note.

Descript does this well. It transcribes a video file and you can click around in the notes window and it jumps to that position in the video. Very handy tool/service. Free for the first fews hours per month(10 maybe), then paid.

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#15

Post by ryandrake »

counternotions wrote: post #5

The country where I’m from, the de facto corporate culture trains the junior employees to furiously scribble down notes as a manager/executive is speaking, as a formality and sign of respect. How much these notes are legible and useful will vary widely, I’ve seen some laughable ones, but it is a positive social tool to enforce the act of listening.

I worked at one of these companies, as one of the scribblers, and it felt bizarre. Multiple people sitting in the meeting, furiously writing down every word spoken by the Great Senior Manager. It felt like I was one of those North Korean guys you see in those pictures, following Dear Leader around writing down all his words. The rationale we were all given was that it is very important to capture every word, because the execs remember what they said and asked for. If you forget to implement something that they mentioned very briefly or off-hand, they'll remember it and there will be trouble...

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#16

Post by ketzo »

> The way I would capture an action item during a meeting would be to underline (if handwritten) or bold (if typed) the part in the note and commit it to memory. Important things would always get remembered by the very nature of being important, but the slightly-less-important-but-still-valuable items would often slip my mind.

> This was the difference between being good and great at my job. It’s the stuff that, when missed, no one really notices, but when you’re on top of it, people think you’re superhuman.

Before starting work at a large company, I would have scoffed at the idea that "remembering little stuff" could ever be "superhuman."

Now? I'm right there with the author. The people I work with who consistently come to meetings with updates like "oh, and I took care of " are my heroes.

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#17

Post by dougmwne »

cyberge99 wrote: post #14
dougmwne wrote: post #2

For me, I really like Zoom recording paired with the automatic transcripts. The transcripts help me to find the section of the video I need to review. I wish there was a feature to tie your typed notes into the video timecodes so by clicking on a note I had made, I could jump to the point in the meeting where I had made the note.

Descript does this well. It transcribes a video file and you can click around in the notes window and it jumps to that position in the video. Very handy tool/service. Free for the first fews hours per month(10 maybe), then paid.

I would want something that lets me take notes on the meeting live, then sync them up with the video and transcript after the fact.

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#18

Post by pdmccormick »

echelon wrote: post #10

Here's my shorthand. Google docs. Nested by topic, use ldaps, use "AI (action item)" to assign tasks. ldap1: This thing * ldap2: No that thing * ldap3: Because of this reason * AI(ldap1): Fix that thing ldap3: What about X? * ldap1: I think X is at risk * ldap2: We have an alternative from [this vendor](link) ... * AI(unassigned): Investigate vendor alternative to fix X It's quick and easy to edit/share. Google Docs…

What does “ldap” mean in this context?

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#19

Post by echelon »

pdmccormick wrote: post #18
echelon wrote: post #10

Here's my shorthand. Google docs. Nested by topic, use ldaps, use "AI (action item)" to assign tasks. ldap1: This thing * ldap2: No that thing * ldap3: Because of this reason * AI(ldap1): Fix that thing ldap3: What about X? * ldap1: I think X is at risk * ldap2: We have an alternative from [this vendor](link) ... * AI(unassigned): Investigate vendor alternative to fix X It's quick and easy to edit/share. Google Docs…

What does “ldap” mean in this context?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_P...

In the context I used it, ldap = username

Essentially all employees have a unique account that is used for email, unix sysadmin, etc., and this is accomplished via LDAP. You can sync permissions, auth, and more between various systems if they all speak the same language.

To use our hacker news usernames, yours would be "pdmccormick" and mine would be "echelon". Companies may choose to make these based on personal names, but it's not required.

Re: My approach to taking notes in meetings

#20

Post by mgbmtl »

I often have (virtual) meetings with clients, and there may be 3-5 people of their team on the call, and I might have a colleague also there.

To make sure meetings aren't a waste of time, each of our clients has a Gitlab space on our self-hosted Gitlab, and while screen-sharing, I open their Board, which is in a sense the meeting agenda.

Then I open each issue, and I take notes while they are talking. If the discussion is too quick, I stop folks and tell them "one second, we should write this down, it's important but I'll forget". And before moving to the next topic, I ask every-one to validate.

Towards the end of the meeting (usually 30-45 mins), we then go back to the board, and re-prioritize if needed.

In parallel, I have a paper todo list, where I write down the issue numbers that I really need to prioritize, or other notes that the client should not see.

Obviously this does not work for all types of meetings, but we also do this for our internal company meetings and it's fairly efficient. In the past I would only use paper, but I ended up with lots of paper that I lost track of.

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