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.