I recently decided to stop bringing a laptop to meetings. That doesn’t mean I just sit idly by during meetings (that’s not to say there aren’t those meetings where I wish I could just sit idly by); I still need to capture notes that are important to me, as well as next steps of action that I need to accomplish.
Initially, I used one of those standard yellow legal pads to take notes, but I’ve never liked 
the options that are faced once a page fills: To tear or fold back, that is the question. Tearing off pages invariably leads to pages getting lost, and folding leaves a near-permanent bend in the top of the paper. On top of that, both methods result in the corners of the pages becoming bent, or ‘dog-eared’, all of which is unsightly.
The option of using a spiral bound notebook was there, and in the past I’ve used the “reporter’s notebook” format, and it worked well. However, I still had the problem with the dog-eared pages after extensive use.
Then I read about Moleskine.
The hard cover prevents pages from becoming bent, and the elastic strap keeps the front and back cover together when shoved into a packed case (or laptop bag). Best of all, there’s a model that fits the reporter’s notebook format, which I find helpful because it does not take up much desk real estate, a big win at a crowded conference table.
The most important thing about a notebook is not what it looks like or how it’s constructed, but, instead, what’s inside of it. There are three categories of notes that I take during meetings:
- Action items (or next steps) that I need to address (I purposely do not keep track of what others need to do; that’s their responsibility)
- Statements or decisions that will impact my work.
- Followup questions or clarifications.
I usually bring two colored pens to meetings, one black and the other red. I use the red pen to write my action items down, and black for all the other types of notes. The red ink stands out from the rest of the notes so that as I capture my notes, I can quickly identify the action items and put them into my task list.
Note that I only keep track of the action items I need to address; short of dependent deliverables, I have no need to know, or track, action items belonging to others.
The “normal” notes I take, written in black ink, are limited to statements of fact that I wasn’t aware of, milestones and schedule dates, and points where a consensus was reached.
The third point above (noting questions you have) is a note taking tactic that I like to encourage others to do, and for two reasons. The first is that I find it rude to interrupt someone’s train of thought with a question. I don’t like to have it done to me, and I try very hard to keep from interrupting others. When a point of question arises, I note it down, and wait for the train of though to complete, or wait for a natural break in the conversation, and then ask the question. The other reason involves a bit of trickery on the speaker’s part. If a speaker believes that they will not be interrupted, they may embark on a long diatribe, and then assume consensus when nobody asks questions when they finish after 10 or 15 minutes of non-stop talking (this is a part of a tactic that I refer to as ‘obfuscation by information overload’). If questions are written down during the monologue, you have an opportunity to ask those questions after the speaker finally runs out of words.
After the meeting, or sometimes at the end of the day, I’ll transcribe the notes in my notebook to electronic form. I find this helps reinforce my understanding of the meeting, as I’ve written about here. I’ve used plain text files or Word documents in the past, however, now I use Evernote to capture my notes. The benefit of using Evernote is that I can access and search the notes online, as well as through a Windows client. The Windows clients also provide the ability to synchronize with a central server, so my notes are up to date regardless of which computer I’m using.