Meeting Notes

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furashgf

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I go to lots of meetings and accumulate notes and handouts. It takes much more than 2 minutes to process the notes: for a typical meeting I may have to draft up meeting minutes (x time) and also scan for n/a and projects. Also, unlike many other n/a, my ability to process the meeting notes drops dramatically over time - since my notes never totally cover exactly what was said.

That being said, if I make it an n/a to "writeup notes from meeting X and identify n/a" then that just ends up on my list and it might be some time before I work it - at which point I've forgotten most of the details of the meeting. If I do it immediately when going through my processing pile, then I easly violate the 2 minute rule. I could hard-landscape it, I guess ...

What do other people do?
 
I thinks that if you want to still have in mind ideas from meeting then you can put this into NA list and into Calendar with 2* days due (after that it becomes sensless as you lost a lot of what was said). That's the one of possible solutions in your case.

In my case I usually put meeting notes directly into NA list. But I try to figure out any resulting calendar items on the fly (during the meeting) so not to miss the most important. All the rest could wait if it could wait for a time when I can come to that :)

* Put here how many days you keep the meeting fresh in your mind. You can even try different values just to check your memory :)

Regards,

Eugene.
 
A meeting without distributed notes, action items and a follow up are worthless...

When I schedule a meeting I also schedule time to process notes, next actions and follow-ups with other people. To schedule a meeting without also scheduling the follow up activity is to say that the meeting will be a waste of time from the start. That meeting with myself sits on my calendar and is as fixed as other appointments and meetings that are on my calendar -- that's to say something else will need to have a very high priority to move it.

Having the discipline to do this has made my meetings more effective, and I usually attend or call fewer meetings unless I can invision a meeting that is so worthwhile that I will take good notes, distribute them and create next actions that I follow up on. I usually schedule the notes processing meeting within 24 hours of the meeting.

I may sound like a meeting nazi, but I KNOW that people like to attend meetings that I call since there will always be an agenda sent out in advance of the meeting, with notes from the previous meeting attached and an action register as well. People feel like they are heard and something important is getting done at the meeting.
 
Just an idea... what if you scheduled every meeting for 15 or 30 minutes longer than the meeting was called for? For example, your department meeting is 9am to 10 am Tuesday mornings. In your calendar you schedule the meeting from 9am to 10:30am. This gives you time to do the necessary work while the information is fresh in your mind. It also frees you to do other things later that day because task "writeup notes from meeting X and identify n/a" is not weighing on your mind.
 
I also add 15-20 minutes to the meeting for notes processing. Justified since the meeting is not 'done' until I am clear as to what actions are required.

Notes are completed, and any next actions listed with start/due dates.
 
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