99% of meeting notes suck.
I take visual meeting notes for a living, for organisations across the world from the NHS and Ministry of Justice, through to Natwest and Siemens.
Over the last 6 years, I've found that traditional meeting notes are usually too:
Long - so you don't want to read them
Waffly - so it's unclear what is important
Static - no visuals, so it's hard to process and retain key ideas
This means that you will never remember what was said, and be unable to implement new ideas and know what to do next.
You don't need to be an artist or a wordsmith to create useful meeting notes.
Here are 3 tips to instantly elevate your meeting notes and make them useful, shareable and the envy of your colleagues.
1. Prep your page first
Use the meeting agenda or introductory slide for clues as to what is coming up and get organised. Four key agenda items? Split your page into four. 3 key ideas? Split your page into 3. You could split it using lines, container boxes or arms of a mind map. Limit yourself to one or a couple of A4 pages - the constraints will force you to...
2. STOP writing and listening to everything
Notes need to be the ESSENTIAL points to remember afterwards. NOT everything. Anything that speakers repeat - write it down. Any pithy quotes that stick in your mind - write them down. DON'T write down stories, loads of examples, or chit chat that isn't relevant to the main topics of discussion you gleaned from prepping the page.
3. Use visual cues to highlight what it important
Use bold thick letters for important headers. Underline key words. Use bulleted lists, mind maps or visual frameworks to condense and contain ideas, or use icons to represent key concepts.