Meeting Notes

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debbieg

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Currently I am in multiple networking meetings on a weekly basis. In the past I kept all my notes in spiral bound notebooks. Having read David's recent book, I am not transferring any action items from my meeting notes into my planner. Sometimes, there are other notes recorded that I may want to refer to later. How do others file that type of info?

I was thinking of a folder "networking meeting notes". This would mean I would need to purge that folder on some kind of regular basis to keep it from ballooning out of hand. Do you think this will work? Pros/Cons?
 
For notes regarding individual people, I'd use a CRM like Salesforce.com or Highrise and transfer notes into each person's record.

For general topic notes, put them in your reference section by topic. It sounds like you're doing this on paper; I'd use an electronic system that's searchable, like Evernote, which alleviates the ballooning-data problem.
 
Thanks & Another Thought

MarinaMartin;82929 said:
For notes regarding individual people, I'd use a CRM like Salesforce.com or Highrise and transfer notes into each person's record.

For general topic notes, put them in your reference section by topic. It sounds like you're doing this on paper; I'd use an electronic system that's searchable, like Evernote, which alleviates the ballooning-data problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am using paper right now as I do not have a laptop or purchase in the near future. The challenge is that the meeting could result in multiple topics of reference. For example; one meeting might provide how to ideas, company insights, that I'd want to reference back to. There might be multiple topics on the same sheet of paper.
 
If you want to stick with a paper system, then grab a pair of scissors. Cut up each piece of paper into topics and file each thought into its appropriate folder. If the same note applies to 2-3 topics, photocopy the note and put it in each place.

Make sure you perform at least a cursory review of each reference folder ever 3-6 months to see if they bring up new action items or become irrelevant. I wouldn't worry too much about paring down notes; assuming you eventually switch to an electronic system in the next few years, you can get a scanner (I love my ScanSnap!) and pull in all your notes. Most OCR software can read handwriting, so as long as your notes are somewhat-legible you'll have all your notes in searchable form eventually.
 
Meeting Notes

I almost always use OneNote. Because I have a reputation for compiling usable and comprehensive notes (I worked as a journalist in a previous life), I'm frequently asked to share. OneNote allows you to email either as a ON doc, a word doc or a PDF. Often times, I can email my notes before everyone leaves the meeting room.

I have a special tag for action items which i can easily transfer to my action list on Nirvana.
 
OneNotes

DShick;83002 said:
I almost always use OneNote. Because I have a reputation for compiling usable and comprehensive notes (I worked as a journalist in a previous life), I'm frequently asked to share. OneNote allows you to email either as a ON doc, a word doc or a PDF. Often times, I can email my notes before everyone leaves the meeting room.

I have a special tag for action items which i can easily transfer to my action list on Nirvana.
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting. Where does one find OneNotes? How much of a learning curve is there? Right now I use MS Office.
 
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