Nearly everyone carries a notepad into a meeting. Some people make detailed minutes of every meeting while others delegate subordinates to do the “dirty work”. But really, why is taking notes considered such a bother?
That depends on what you write in your notepad. Some people doodle, others dawdle. Some people hate writing and prefer to type instead. Others have handwritings that are almost impossible to read. And – face it – some people are more organized than others while some others just don’t pay attention at a meeting.
True, things may happen so fast in a meeting with so many people saying different things that it becomes impossible to put it all down on paper. Maybe that’s why some notepad pages are a jumbled mess of words and abstract shapes and figures that make sense only to the note-taker. Sometimes, even the note-taker has trouble understanding his or her notes when he or she re-reads them.
Some people attempt to make things easier for themselves by using voice recorders. However, the flipside of that approach is that listening to the recording and transcribing it is awfully time-consuming. Quite often, a lot is spoken that is quite irrelevant to the purpose of the meeting. Listening for the necessary bits can be a waste of time. Worse, recorders may run out of battery or stop working for other reasons. In such cases, it is always better to back up by taking notes.
A good note-taker does more than just write down minutes. Remember, the goal of every meeting is a successful outcome. Rather than merely jot down what is spoken and discussed, note-takers must make connections, link up views and outline possible solutions to issues and problems that are discussed at the meeting. A structured note-taking approach can be a very useful aid to generate solutions on the fly.
Here are few tips for effective note-taking:
- Go beyond the words and make visual references
- Be creative and think beyond the arrows, bulleted lists and boxes
- Mindmaps are a great idea, because they can help you join the dots between what people are saying
- Columns are also useful to delineate discussion points from action points
- Speech bubbles can be used to highlight and emphasize the points made by speakers and the responses from other participants
- Thought bubbles may be used to indicate your reactions or opinions
- Always note the time and date
- Always capture the context and purpose of the meeting and outline the next steps
Now we come to the hard part – preserving your notes. Seldom do people go right back to their computers and scan images of their notepad pages. Instead, they extract points from their notes into an email or a memo. In the process, a lot of firsthand information that was discussed at the meeting gets lost. And more often than not, the notepads eventually find their way into the shredder or the box meant for recyclables.
So what’s the way out? The good news is that somebody has already thought about it. MightyNotes™ and Evernote are two applications that help you digitize the note-taking process and simplify a lot of tasks associated with making quick and nifty notes.
MightyNotes™ is freeware and has a great intuitive interface that helps you break text into columns and use symbols to make your notes insightful and action-oriented. Evernote, on the other hand, is shareware and helps you integrate snapshots of web pages, clip text and images and pretty much every kind of media into an online notebook.
At the next meeting, volunteer to take notes and make a difference.
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