Tips for taking meeting notes

Michael (who calls himself a GTD implementer for two years and counting), wrote to us with this question:notes

Curious if anyone has any tips/symbols or shortcuts for notetaking. I tend to write circles next to actionable items when I’m taking meeting notes and starring important items, but always looking for a better system.

Here is the tip I shared:

One tip I find useful is to create a separate page at the start of the meeting called “mindsweep” where I collect open items and next actions I create during the meeting.  I often have things on that too that have nothing to do with the meeting. Then, when I leave the meeting, processing the meeting notes is a separate item to handle from the mindsweep page.

Got a tip to share? We’d love to hear what works for you.  Leave a comment or email us at [email protected].

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26 Comments

  1. I created my own meeting notes template on graph paper, and added the following column headers, which seem to be relevant for all meetings I attend: (1) Date/Attendees; (2) News/Context/Background; (3) Key Issues; (4) Decisions Made; (5) Next Actions (with initials in brackets of who’s doing what.)

    Here’s a site where you can create a custom sheet of graph paper: http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

  2. I keep a separate list with the next actions from the meeting, the name of the person responsible for the action and (if it is not me) the person responsible for following up. At the end of the meeting, I review my notes and do a brief mindsweep of any other information, tasks, future agenda items that need to be processed.

  3. I created a system called dash/plus which many use to process meeting notes GTD style. The best explanation of the system is at my website here: http://patrickrhone.com/2008/05/07/dashplus-in-action/

    Here is the short version:

    – (Dash): Undone Action Item.
    + (Plus): Done Action Item.
    (Right Arrow): Waiting – (i.e. for another action).
    ^ (Triangle): Data Point.
    O (Circle): A circle around any of the above means that it has been carried forward, moved to another list or otherwise changed status – i.e. a “Waiting” item has now become an Action Item elsewhere (with a note about where that item has gone).

  4. I try to keep a second and sometimes third color pen on hand during meetings/classes, so that I can make any “off topic” notations to myself in the margins of my notes a different color. This can include books someone mentions that I want to read, a grocery list item that pops into my head, etc. Sometimes I will circle or highlight next actions in a third color as the meeting goes on. After the meeting, notes get thrown into the inbox. During processing, the “off topic” items get put on the appropriate list (or done if less than 2 min), the action items from the meeting get put on their list, and the notes get put in the appropriate file related to that meeting (or tossed if not needed).

  5. I’m confused by the tip. Is the mindsweep page a summary of action items? Or is it something separate and distinct from the meeting notes?

  6. The Cornell Note Taking System

    Recall Column

    ——2 1/2”——– —————-6”——————–

    Reduce ideas and facts to
    concise jottings and
    summaries as cues for Record the lecture as fully and as
    Reciting, Reviewing, meaningfully as possible.
    and Reflecting.

    The format provides the perfect opportunity for following through with the 5 R’s of note-taking. Here they are:

    1. Record. During the lecture, record in the main column as many meaningful facts and ideas as you can. Write legibly.

    2. Reduce. As soon after as possible, summarize these ideas and facts concisely in the Recall Column. Summarizing clarifies meanings and relationships, reinforces continuity, and strengthens memory. Also, it is a way of preparing for examinations gradually and well ahead of time.

    3. Recite. Now cover the column, using only your jottings in the Recall Column as cues or “flags” to help you recall, say over facts and ideas of the lecture as fully as you can, not mechanically, but in your own words and with as much appreciation of the meaning as you can. Then, uncovering your notes, verify what you have said. This procedure helps to transfer the facts and ideas of your long term memory.

    4. Reflect. Reflective students distill their opinions from their notes. They make such opinions the starting point for their own musings upon the subjects they are studying. Such musings aid them in making sense out of their courses and academic experiences by finding relationships among them. Reflective students continually label and index their experiences and ideas, put them into structures, outlines, summaries, and frames of reference. They rearrange and file them. Best of all, they have an eye for the vital-for the essential. Unless ideas are placed in categories, unless they are taken up from time to time for re-examination, they will become inert and soon forgotten.

    5. Review. If you will spend 10 minutes every week or so in a quick review of these notes, you will retain most of what you have learned, and you will be able to use your knowledge currently to greater and greater effectiveness.

  7. I HATED taking notes….on paper….to the point that I just really wouldn’t write much down (besides obvious NA’s). But then I recently discovered MS OneNote 2007. Now my system looks like this:

    1. Click one button in my outlook calendar meeting to sych the meeting data to a OneNote page. (will automagically include who was invited, the meeting name, and any notes – typically the agenda)

    2. Take my laptop to the meeting (either physically or through MS Live Meeting). If physical, I will usually hook my laptop up to the monitor so everyone can see what I’m doing.

    3. Take very fast notes during meeting. I am a fast typer, so this is no problem. I also use my computer during the meeting to do things like go to Google Earth, websites, open documents, ect. Plus my project info is mostly in OneNote, so it’s like I have my whole filing cabinate in the actually meeting.

    3. I bring screen grabs into OneNote on the fly. And annotate it as I need.

    4. Meeting adjured – I will quickly send the One Note page out through email (before people even get back to their desks).

    5. I will then process my notes for NA’s (which automagically link to Outlook tasks – my GTD HQ).

    6. If I HAVE to, I will take my rough notes and use MS Word to make the more formal meeting minutes.

    AMAZING…..to me, anyways.

  8. I just take (or jot) down what comes up, and I draw three distinct symbols in the left margin:

    ! – (exclamation mark) action item
    i – (info) interesting bit of information, or stuff to think about
    ? – question

    That’s about it. I sometimes will use a smiley or some other symbol if it comes naturally.

    I don’t use a single piece of paper for every thought when I’m in a meeting, but when I’m processing my notes it helps to just strike out the lines that I have already processed.

    Another thing I did that I dropped small square blocks of note paper (9 x 9 cm) and a pencil in all strategic places that I could think of (our dinner table at home, my bedside table, my desk at work and at home, the kitchen at work and my bosses (!) office desk), because I never know when an impromptu meeting or just some rampant thought hits me.

    (Yes, writing in the dark is hard, but it’s better than having to get up in the middle of the night ;-))

  9. My big tip is scanning my notes after meetings. I like to take notes using a modified mind map. Different colored pens bring my notes to life and make action items easier to pull out.

    After the meeting I scan the pages into my laptop. Now the notes are available as attachments to projects and next actions in Outlook.

  10. +1 on Patrick Rhone’s Dash/Plus system above. I also use the Cornell format and record action items in the left column. Additionally, I keep an index card handy to record any non-meeting related items. Both are tossed into the inbox and processed accordingly.

  11. I use a moleskine reporter’s notebook. I like to keep my notes short and sweet – I’m not a person who writes down everything.

    * action items
    – informational items

    After the meeting, I process the action items in Omnifocus. I check them of in the notebook after they are entered (sometimes I get interrupted during the processing).

  12. I used to use my notes to capture actions with a circled NA next to any actions. I would then review my notes during my next weekly review and transfer any items needing processing into my next action/projects list (a categorized tasks list on MS Outlook 2007).

    I found that I was missing the 2 minute or immediate actions by waiting until my weekly review, so I found myself reviewing my notes twice – once to pull out the immediate actions and again during my weekly review, so that didn’t work so well.

    I use 4×4 lined Post It note blocks for my ubiquitous capture – I’ve found that I can peel off a small stack of 10-15 notes and stick them on the inside cover of the Mead QuickNotes notebook I use for meeting notes without adding much thickness, so I always have them with me. The QuickNotes page format has a title area at the top and a lined “QuickNotes” area at the bottom separated from the rest of the lined page.

    As I take meeting notes, 2 minute actions get noted in the bottom area of the Quickbook page as well as any actions that will need attention before my next weekly review. I typically process the items on the bottom of the page as soon as I get back to my office or at the end of the same day.

    New projects or actions and “waiting for” items – actions that can wait until my next weekly review, go on Post Its. The Post Its get peeled off and put in my inbox the minute I get back to my office. That way I can separate and process actions depending on whether it is a quick “I’ll send you that document when I get back to my desk” versus “I’ll research that question and get back to you when I’ve had a chance to look at it.”

    Basically, I do the GTD flowchart on the fly during the meeting and slot actions depending on whether or not they’ll get stale before my next weekly review.

    That way each aspect of the meeting notes gets processed only once depending on when it needs attention. I know when I get back to my desk that I can knock out the items at the bottom of the page usually in 10-15 minutes immediately after the meeting (or the same day, which people appreciate) and not think about the rest until the weekly review.

  13. In my Moleskine, I always use the right page for my notes in meetings. These pages are numbered and dated.
    The left page is used for thoughts and tasks that come up randomly.

    If I have a task to perform, I mark it with a big “P” in a circle. “P” stands for “Pendenz”, the Swiss-German word for task. If I can’t execute the action immediately after returning to the office, I transfer it to MS Outlook as a task (using JelloDashboard) and strike it through in the Moleskine.

    Regards,
    Aeschi

  14. I use an A5 notebook turned landscape on the top page I mind map the agenda, attendees etc and on the bottom page I mind map the key topics and I have a branch for actions which make it easy to review and pull out later. As I use mind manager I can then add any relevant information to the project map later.

  15. I buy a college lined note book and put the month and date on it and use this like a journal. Notes from whatever can be pulled from the notebook and filed or scanned.

    Usually I date and put the name of meeting host or activity which makes it easier to go back and find items when I need them.

    I am starting to use mind mapping as a why to set my priorities, but need some software to really use the idea on my pc.

  16. I take notes at meetings using MindManager in Ink mode on my Tablet PC. The agenda (pasted from a Word document or email) forms the skeleton of the map. The attendees can be added as a resource list to a topic prior to the meeting making it easy to add them as action owners during the meeting. Map markers can be used to prioritise and categorise items. Map parts to add repeating structures e.g. weekdays, departments. Topic Alerts can be used as post meeting reminders which also become Outlook appointments.

    After the meeting I convert the ink to text, adding information and relevant links to web pages and documents. Depending on the audience for my notes I can publish as a map or export to Word (where actions appear in neat task tables) or to a web page.

  17. I use a – at the start if a new actionable item. When I’ve transferred it to my system I turn it into a so I know it’s marked off.

  18. My #1 tip for meeting notes: separate collection from organization

    For paper note taking, drop your notes in your inbox when you’re done and take the time to process them.

    I use and recommend many of the in-margin techniques people mention here to make processing my notes easier. But the critical improvement for me was to get into the habit of processing my notes after every meeting. It doesn’t actually take that long.

    The Cornell method is a specific way to process and review your notes on a single sheet of paper. If you have a paper based work system it’s the way to go.

    I use an outliner (thinklinkr.com – full disclosure, it’s my product). During a meeting I make sure I capture everything that’s relevant. Then I organize the information in the outline and it serves as the meeting notes. The nice thing about using an electronic tool instead of paper is that it’s easy to edit and move things around. Lately I’ve gotten good enough at it so that i can usually process everything during the dead time in meetings.

  19. Gene, you asked: I’m confused by the tip. Is the mindsweep page a summary of action items? Or is it something separate and distinct from the meeting notes?
    >>Both. It’s a place for action items that come out of the meeting, and random mindsweep items that occur to me during the meeting.
    Thanks to all for contributing your tips! Great stuff.
    -Kelly

  20. I have a paper to do list. As new to do items arise during meetings I write them directly onto the to do list rather than once in my notes and copied into the to do list. I use Levenger paper with a wide left margin; meeting notes are on the right in outline form; ideas, questions, doodles are in the left margin.

  21. I am in meetings almost 8 hours a day – either hosting them getting people to accept action items, or helping make decisions in other meetings getting action items myself. I always make sure my meetings and other peoples have a clear purpose and agenda and that the right people are on the call. You do not want to waste people’s time with multiple meetings. When I take notes, I do it online in the agenda and I add action items. Then at the end of the meeting I recap the action items, assign people, set dates for them to be accomplished and the date and time for the next meeting. I send the meeting minutes out after the call. Then I move all the action items for me to the correct GTD categories and get mine done before the next meeting.

  22. Here I am sitting comfortably with the Christmas tree an arm’s length away and all the presents unwrapped. I’m browsing through these terrific note taking suggestions on my mac and I realised I have one tip you might like. You can write your notes in the form of stories and they will be more than 20 times more memorable than dots points alone.

  23. I use those yellow legal pads for meeting notes. I mentally divide the sheet into three areas. The first area is the top margin and about 3-4 lines down. This is for action items that come up during the meeting. I write “AI” (action item) and then what needs to be done to further identify it. Then, the rest of my sheet is divided in half lenghtwise. The left half is maybe 2 inches for my own thoughts and ideas that come up during the meeting (Q: question), (I: Idea), (!: important). The rest of the paper is for taking notes. I developed this while in Grad school and it helped a lot.

  24. Since getting my hands on an iPad 2 I no longer use paper.
    I use Notes Plus to record a discussion or meeting and make brief notes.
    Because this app allows you to jump to the place in the audio that your notes were taken, you can avoid listening to the whole meeting and just remind yourself of the detail of specific topics.
    Then it’s just a matter of processing the notes into OmniFocus before deleting the note, though they could be archived or emailed if you’re that way inclined.
    Seamless and easy.

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