As the spokesperson for the FBI in Northern California, I was beset by reporter demands, meetings, public debriefings followed by  classified debriefing (and please, do not get the two confused!), and a host of other conversations. All in one hour, and then on the next hour . . . the point being, keeping notes kept my life organized. I could always flip back to my earlier pages to accurately reflect upon what had transpired. I’ve tried it with my “devices” but they are simply not as efficient – at least, for me. Who knew . . .

Note taking also (for me anyway) reduces those 3am wake-up from a deep sleep, fretting about something I forgot to do.

I tend to doodle during meetings, which helps me focus. People don’t usually understand that, and I can never explain why it helps. It just works for me.

I like the Smart Notes idea the best. I’ve always used a star for important things but tend to get them buried in the notes themselves.  Four symbols is the perfect number and covers all the needs in any meeting.

Thanks for sharing!

Lori F

Years ago I was an executive assistant and did tones of note-taking to create minutes for employees. I loved it. Between the good-old Moleskin occasionally and Evernote, post-it stickies help me take brief notes when I’m in a hurry. They can come in handy too, especially when I’m on a conference call and need to take a quite note.

I appreciate your blog-post!

I tried the Moleskine thing, but that didn’t seem to fit my work style well. My work tends to be project oriented, and having all of my notes in one book resulted in them being disjointed. Since I started my professional life as an engineer, I went back to 8.5 x 11 engineer’s computational pads. I like the green color, and I can keep all of the pages for a specific project in a folder or binder specific to that project. I can also scan them easily to eliminate paper. I still keep a Moleskine for team meetings that are not linked to a project, at least until the one I am using gets full.

I’ve consistently used mindmapping to take notes, incorporating more sketches/doodles in with the notes to help with recall. This past year ~80% of my note taking has been on the ipad with ithoughts mindmapping tool I create templates for types of meetings, use photos in the photo app to insert into the notes and This has worked very well for me.

Thanks.

However, I really liked your idea of indenting notes and using a symbol to notify what kind of note it is. I can see that being pretty effective.

One of my mentors, Bob Schmidt, was a leader that everyone admired. He passed away suddenly a couple of years ago, and I am so grateful I took good notes at all of his presentations. When I read them, his words come to life all over again.

Thanks for sharing you thoughts on note-taking, especially the idea on putting symbols in the left margin. I’ll implement that idea.

Connie

The great thing about a mndmap is that you can overview the whole and easy flex the record as the meeting unfolds.

I believe he viewed note-taking as a power-position because those who took them could speak with authority about the company’s issues since they had the documentation at their fingertips. Note-taking communicated to him that someone was serious about meeting their responsibilities in the company and interested in growing. Note-takers were marked by this manager for increased responsibilities because there was an underlying assumption that they were dependable. All of this was unspoken, of course.

I use different symbols than yours but they connote generally the same things. I also put a B or Bk in the margin whenever a book or resource is mentioned that I may want to look into after the meeting.

Thanks for the article! I always enjoy your tips!