Master meeting note-taking: prep tips, organized methods, and review strategies to boost focus and retention.
Taking good notes during meetings is a critical skill that benefits both you and the other participants. Comprehensive, accurate meeting notes serve several important purposes:
In summary, taking complete, accurate notes is a valuable use of your time that pays dividends. These notes become an important reference and allow you to fully participate in and contribute to organizational initiatives arising from meetings.
Before attending the meeting, gather any documents, files, or background information that may be relevant. Having access to related materials will allow you to better follow along and take more meaningful notes.
Bring a notepad, laptop, tablet, or whatever you prefer to use for taking notes. Make sure you have pens, pencils, chargers, etc. By coming prepared with your preferred note-taking tools and resources, you’ll remove any obstacles to giving the meeting your full attention and capturing quality notes.
Some other tips for coming prepared:
Thorough preparation is key to taking great notes, as it allows you to fully focus on the discussion once the meeting begins. Do any legwork needed beforehand so your note-taking isn’t disrupted by missing materials or distractions.
To learn more, here's a blog post about effective meeting management stategies
When taking notes in a meeting, it's important to listen carefully to the discussion so you can accurately capture the key points. Don't get distracted checking emails or phones. Focus your full attention on the conversation.
Listen for summaries of important points. Oftentimes, the meeting leader or participants will summarize conclusions reached or next steps decided. These summaries are crucial to note down.
Also listen closely for any action items or decisions that are made. Be sure to note who is responsible for completing the action item and by what date. Action items are one of the most important outcomes of meetings, so missing or inaccurately writing these down can cause problems.
In addition to listening for summaries and action items, try to note down key points made during open discussion. You don't need to frantically transcribe everything word-for-word. But do your best to listen closely and note the essence of what each person contributes.
By focusing intently on the discussion and noting down the most salient summaries, action items, and points raised, you'll end up with a clear record of the meeting that you can refer back to and share with others.
Taking notes by hand and digitally each have their own pros and cons to consider:
Glyph AI is an meeting assistant software that can transcribe your meeting recordings, generate transcripts and meeting notes. Learn more.
The choice between handwritten or digital notes depends on your personal preference and meeting context. Many find mixing both methods provides the ideal balance. Use what allows you to focus best in meetings and refer back to your notes easily later.
Taking notes verbatim in a meeting is difficult and inefficient. Using shorthand allows you to capture the key points faster. Common shorthand techniques include:
The key is consistency. Establish your own shorthand style and utilize it meeting after meeting. With practice, you'll quickly adapt to writing faster using abbreviations, symbols and shorthand techniques.
During the meeting, pay close attention and note down the key points of the discussion. This will help you create a summary later.
Capturing concise summaries of the discussion in real-time will help when you need to review, share or follow up on the meeting later. Distill the key information while it's fresh in your mind.
As the meeting progresses, be sure to flag any items that need follow up or clarification after the meeting. This may include:
Taking note of these open items will help drive follow-up work after the meeting to achieve clarity and closure. Be sure to highlight or flag these points in your notes so they are easy to revisit later. You may want to use asterisks, question marks, or another symbol to distinguish follow-up items from other notes.
Having a clear trail of open issues enables you to efficiently move forward after the meeting. You'll know exactly who needs to provide clarification on what topics before definitive next steps can be determined. Capturing these questions thoroughly during the meeting ensures important loose ends are not lost or forgotten.
After the meeting, take some time to organize and highlight your notes so they make sense and can be easily referenced later.
Organizing and highlighting your notes this way makes them cleaner and easier for you or others to reference later on. It helps focus on the most relevant details from the meeting.
Right after the meeting concludes, review your notes and make sure everything is legible and clear. If you took handwritten notes, this is a good time to type them up or organize them while the meeting is still fresh in your mind.
Go through your notes and fill in any gaps in information. Check with others who were at the meeting to fill in any key points you may have missed. Review any action items and unresolved issues to have a clear understanding.
Look for areas where you can expand on your notes by:
Clarifying your notes right after the meeting will help you and others refer back to them later on. It also shows you were engaged and focused on capturing the most important details during the actual meeting.
After the meeting, ensure you send out a summary of the meeting notes to all participants. This helps get everyone on the same page on what was discussed and any outcomes or action items from the meeting.
You'll want to circulate notes soon after the meeting while everything is still fresh. Send the notes out via email or a collaboration platform like Slack or Microsoft Teams so there's a record of it.
Include relevant participants who may not have been present at the meeting, but who will be responsible for following up on action items.
Ask participants to review the notes and confirm that their understanding aligns with the outcomes and next steps. This allows attendees to clarify anything that may have been misinterpreted or missed in the notes.
Designate someone to compile any corrections or additional points into a final "official" record of the meeting. Maintain a master list of notes that can be referred to later on.
Sharing meeting notes helps get everyone on the same page while also providing visibility and accountability on tasks and objectives. It ensures outcomes are progressed and not forgotten.
With Glyph Meeting Assistant, you can share meeting recordings and note via link generated by the platform.
Click here to learn more about The Warning Signs of Meeting Burn Out.