Recently I shared my method for capturing screenshots. I haven’t yet seen anyone else who incorporates this into their normal workflow. Consider this my attempt to spread the great news of screenshots.

If you spend your day working on a computer, and often have the need to capture visual information, then using a screenshot program might just be one of the biggest wins in helping to retain and save information.

There are so many times where I’m on a team call and we’re walking through changes that we need to make with a design. A colleague shares their screen and references something, then I reference another thing, and at the end of the meeting I might find myself forgetting what we even talked about.

The forgetting part was mostly solved years ago by the fact that I type fast and take thorough notes at most meetings.

However, it’s a lot harder to describe a design change with words if you’re trying to reference a component with two modules inside of it in version three of a Figma file, deep down in page two; and that needs to be matched up with another design in a Linear task from two months ago.

This kind of matching up is nearly impossible.

Do I write, “pull the design from the Figma file I can’t remember and match it up to the Linear task I own’t be able to find”? No, I used to do that and it drove me nuts. I couldn’t even decipher my own notes after the meeting. Recording meetings isn’t much better. First, everyone is on edge when you’re recording, and second you have to go back through and watch. Nobody has time for that.

With a screenshot program I can type a note, press a quick keyboard shortcut and capture part of the screen, paste the url to that screenshot into the note, and keep typing. It all happens in a second and barely slows me down. In fact Droplr is the best at this. For Cleanshot I sometimes do have to pause for a beat, but on the whole both programs are excellent.

This method of note taking is much quicker to decipher later.

True, I could open a Figma file or something simiilar for each meeting, take screenshots and drag them around, attaching text notes to the images. But I find a simple Apple Notes doc with a checklist, or even the ever handy TextEdit file, to be far quicker to drop thoughts into, then if need be I can convert all that into a Figma file later.

Update: I updated the latest version of Droplr and it’s basically unusable now with the way I take screenshots. I don’t see anyway to disable an option that asks you to choose your screenshot type. I might be able to revert to an old version, but I’m skeptical.