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How do you make meeting notes?
I saw some topics on note-taking programs and apps, so I felt a topic on note-taking strategies would be a nice complementary one. When I was still a student, I experimented with various note types (mind map, Cornell, bullet points,...) but ever since I started working, I've sort of stopped experimenting. Hence my question: how do you take meeting notes?
I'm often the one taking notes during our meetings, here's my template
Notes
Action Items
Then I share with the attendees
I use paper and pen to stay present in the meeting, and then transcribe them to JIRA tickets or Slack messages to people/groups with suitable reminders (not kidding, and well aware how terrible this idea is) for follow up
Cool format! I feel like I'd quickly run out of room in those boxes tho haha
[edit: tl;dr notepad++ for online meetings, or pen and paper for face to face. It's mostly a list of things I need to look up, or of answers to my questions]
For the meetings I attend I have comprehensive papers.
I'll read through those. I'll make notes of "what I don't know yet", and "what more information do I need from this organisation, this speaker?" I'll do some web-searching for the stuff I don't know yet to clear that up.
I'm familiar with the meetings and how full they are. Some are designed to dump information and have some discussion. Some are designed to have fuller discussion from a wide range of people. With this information I'll look at my notes and work out some targeted short focussed questions that ask a specific question. Once I've refined that as much as I can I'll go back over it and add the soft bits - the "thank you for that, I'm pleased to see the work that's happening because I know it's been a problem for sometime and the results so far look good. Could you tell us..." bits.
When the meeting happens I have two monitors. My laptop monitor is full screen for MS Teams. My secondary monitor has three windows. Half the screen is the first paper. Then the other half screen is split in two for the agenda and notepad++. That notepad++ window has my questions in. I also type out my introduction ready - "Hello, I'm Dan, I'm etc etc" (because my role differs between different meetings).
The meeting starts with an action log and I make notes of anything I need to do; and then we move onto the 1st agenda item. The speaker presents their paper. I make notes of anything confusing or alarming or incongruent with the paper. People then ask questions, and I write that (and the answer) down if it's interesting. I ask my question, and get details.
This continues for each item.
After the meeting has ended I summarise when I know now, what I've learned, what I need to ask more questions about. I remove anything confidential from that summary. I date and title the summary and it goes into a folder. I destroy my meeting papers, and I destroy my notes.
Some of my meetings are a lot less formal, and the discussion will reveal a lot that I don't know, so I take more comprehensive notes of those. The main meeting like this I'm thinking of is face to face, so I make hand-written notes. My page is split into two - "things I don't know yet" and "people to talk to, places to visit" on the other.
My team uses Trello quite a bit so we'll usually just create a new card on Trello and write down notes. We rotate between note takers and most people usually just take notes down in Trello during the meeting though some also write down things on paper and then transfer it to Trello.
I’m responsible for the agenda for some meetings and I took an idea from HBR and number each item framed as a question, with an allotted time for discussion. If there are references, I list what they are. The agenda is sent out a week ahead of time as a Word doc. Although someone else is assigned to take meeting minutes, I make inline notes for myself in the Word doc. Blue text for my thoughts while preparing. Red text for decisions that were made, who is responsible, and what the time frame is.
Mind maps are actually a great tool, there are many open source software such as freemind which help with this. Other than that, hierarchical bullet listings (in yaml files) is my preferred tool to make notes, article summaries, lists of various things, etc.
I switch between two main strategies: bullet points using a fountain pen on paper and some Zettelkasten-inspired technique on my laptop.
Chronologically sorted bullet points with subitems and big circles around dates. Always on paper so people at the meeting think I'm listening and making much effort to write things down.
Example: