Geek to Live: Take great notes
by Gina Trapani
Like it or not, our work lives involve meetings - status meetings, planning conference calls, brainstorming sessions, meetings for the sake of meetings. But a meeting is only as valuable as the action taken after everyone's left the conference room.
Whether you're headed off to a business meeting, a university lecture, or a conference session, taking effective notes is a necessary skill to move your projects, your career and your education forward. Today I'll go over a couple of my favorite note-taking methods, as well as how to make your own custom notepaper to fit your needs.
The first two methods are especially useful for business meetings and professional conferences, where it's most important to separate different types of information.
Method 1: Symbolize the next action
Using notepaper or a simple text file on your laptop or tablet, indent the pages of your notes in from the left margin. Then, use a simple system of symbols to mark off 4 different information types in the column space left in the margin.
- [ ] A square checkbox denotes a to do item
- ( ) A circle indicates a task to be assigned to someone else
- * An asterisk is an important fact
- ? A question mark goes next to items to research or ask about
After the meeting, a quick vertical scan of the margin area makes it easy to add tasks to your to do list and calendar, send out requests to others, and further research questions. (This method is the brainchild of Michael Hyatt, someone who clearly has mastered the art of attending meetings.)
Method 2: Split your page into quadrants
Another way to visually separate information types is to split your note-taking page into quadrants and record different kinds of information - like questions, reference and todo's - into the separate areas on the page. Rumor has it this is how Bill Gates - someone known for taking amazingly detailed meeting notes - gets it done.
Method 3: Record and summarize - The Cornell Note-taking Method
A system more targeted towards students digesting large amounts of information on a daily basis, the Cornell note-taking method also separates the page into different areas, as pictured:
- Note taking area: Record lecture as fully and meaningfully as possible.
- Cue column: As you're taking notes, leave the cue column empty. Soon after the lecture, reduce your notes to concise jottings as clues for Reciting, Reviewing and Reflecting.
- Summaries: Sum up each page of your notes in a sentence or two.
DIY notepaper
There are a few neat little webapps out there that produce custom PDF's of formatted, lined notepaper with various options for printing out before your meeting and possibly stowing in a binder.
Notepaper Generator [Simson.net]
Cornell Method PDF Generator [Study Smarter]
Prints pages split up into the Cornell notepaper style with unlined, ruled or graphed sections. Optionally include your name, the date, and the name of your class, and up to 4 punch holes for use in a binder. Also, choose the line darkness on a scale from gray to black.
Notepad Generator [Michael Botsko]
What do you use to take notes in meetings? How do you keep your jottings organized and useful after the fact? Let us know in the comments or to tips at lifehacker.com.
Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, is getting better at taking worthwhile notes. Her semi-weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Wednesday and Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
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