In meetings and conferences it is generally frowned upon to stare at a laptop typing while the presenter is speaking. For these cases, good ole’ pen and paper are relied upon. But I have to admit, I’m not much for taking notes. I can either listen to the presenter or write but I can’t do both very well. Here’s a tip for taking less notes but retaining more critical information.
If your company allows it, record the meeting using your smartphone. Almost all voice recording apps for smartphones have a time indicator that displays on screen. Instead of wearing your hand out trying to write down everything the speaker says, just jot a note when something important is mentioned and start the note with the time indicator that is being displayed on the phone’s screen at that time. Later, you can scrub to any time sequence that you wrote down to hear exactly what the speaker was saying at that time. Want to make this tip even more awesome? Save the voice recording as an .mp3 file to Evernote along with a scanned copy of your notes and you’ll have it forever!
Now go get something done!
