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What are your note-taking/organization tips?

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Al Davidson Program Manager| Internet Escrow Services Inc San Francisco, Ca, United States
I tend to sit in on meetings with different vendors for tons of different discoveries/reference calls and want to make sure I keep all of the info I receive organized.

What are some tips for note taking during meetings and keeping all the noise organized so you remember what everyone said and what everyone is doing?
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Jennifer Nicks PM Consultant| J S and N Consulting Woodstock, Ga, United States
Feb 06, 2019 1:37 PM
Replying to Blaine Kruizenga
...
One of my favorite tools is OneNote from Microsoft. It has lots of tricks that help you capture and categorize topics easily. One example is the ability to configure custom tags that you can mark notes with during the meeting using shortcut keys and then compile later by running a process.

My most often used tags are: Action Item, Decision, Risk, Question, Answer, Important, Critical and Side Note. The "Find Tags" feature lets you create a separate note page with everything grouped by tags, making it easy to follow up on important items.

It also integrates with MS Office, pulling Outlook meeting information and attendees into the notes page and allowing you to share your notes out to meeting attendees by clicking a button and linking to Excel worksheets within your notes. Lot of other tricks to automate processes.

I've actually given presentations within my organization(s) on tips and tricks on using OneNote and it tends to spread.
Can you share more OneNote tips and tricks please. Very interesting. I’m using OneNote but am only attacking a new page for each meeting for the minutes. Nothing behind that feature.

Thanks for considering.
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Daire Guiney Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
One tip is to email all the relevant content in advance of the meeting in a concise format. Go through the content and use the meetings to flesh out the details of the content and how it applies to your situation. Also set a fixed time limit to the meeting and set out in advance of the meeting in a predefined agenda what exactly you want to cover. Preparation is the key to success.
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Manish Prasad Gurgaon, Haryana, India
I have prepared excel template where I capture all notes, action items, owner along with due date & share the same with all stakeholders over email. I capture notes on screen share so that if I missed on anything than people can correct me.
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Lonnie Pacelli Author & President| ProjectManagementAdvisor.com Bellevue, Wa, United States
What's most important here is the types of information that is recorded. It's easy to produce a long audit trail of an entire conversation that no one will bother to read. Focus on recording the following:
* Key decisions made
* Material issues requiring resolution
* Material risks requiring mitigation
* Action item what/who/when

I like using OneNote or if the culture dictates just use simple email. The most important thing is to communicate with stakeholders and drive accountability.
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Stéphane Parent Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker Prince Edward Island, Canada
I aslo use OneNote. You can video- or audio-record directly from it, it supports handwriting recognition and will also allow you to search for text in pasted images.

If that wasn't enough, a OneNote file installed on a shared drive, can update screens in real-time.
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