Where meeting notes can help

Inspired by this post from Baty, I’ve been thinking about meeting notes and their value.

I take notes in most meetings I attend.

I can’t imagine being part of a group of people talking and not capturing what’s being said. At this point it’s a habit. It also helps that I can still type relatively quickly.

My note taking started years ago when I was trying to understand a bunch of technical jargon being thrown around. I’d been recently brought on the team to help manage things, and I needed to be able to capture and assign work. My best hope of capturing things (and this was long before AI transcription tools) was to type everyone’s thoughts live and process them later.

Taking these types of notes gave me access to meetings that I might not normally have been able to attend. I learned as much as I could, and was able to convert my notes into understanding.

Some technical conversation I didn’t grasp in the moment could be worked over later by reading back over the discussion. Then I’d often be able to participate in the technical work in followup conversations.

Nowadays there’s less need for note taking from this point of view. I’m not specifically managing any teams. But I am doing design work.

Now I take notes to capture any potential actions I might need.

Often when we’re talking about potential design changes. In our discusison we’ll debate and talk through possibilities. The notes I capture are a log that can be referenced later if we dive into a particularly complex set of ideas.

This isn’t the only way to do it. Some people I know are just able to remember what they need to do, others take hand written notes, and still others use AI tools.

By typing out what I hear I’m able to relieve the conversation later, if needed. And, at the very least it is a focal point for my mind to not wander.

I’m bullish on note taking. But I also don’t overwly worry about it. I’ll capture as much as I can, then followup with clarifying questions later. My main goal is to keep projects moving forward, and often having a reference helps with that.