How to Be a Better Meeting Notetaker

Do not index

How to Be a Better Meeting Notetaker: Tips and Tools

Taking effective meeting notes can be challenging, especially when people talk fast, discussions lack structure, or important points get buried in conversation. If you’ve ever struggled to keep up, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Here’s how to improve your note taking skills and read till the end to find the alternative solution to make the process even easier.

Common Challenges of Notetaking

Fast-Paced Discussions

Rapid conversations make it hard to capture key details in any meeting. This is especially challenging in virtual meetings where audio quality or internet connection issues can compound the problem. Meeting participants may speak over each other or have varying audio levels, making it difficult to follow and document the conversation accurately.

Unclear Focus

Without a structured agenda, it’s tough to separate important insights from minor updates. Your notes become cluttered and unstructured. This challenge is particularly common in remote meetings where participants may join with varying levels of preparation and context about the topics being discussed, often leading to repeated questions and answers and mumble jumbled conversations that pack progression.

Multitasking Fatigue

Juggling listening and writing can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re tired or distracted with doing other work during the meeting.

Overwriting Everything

Trying to document every word leads to overloaded, unreviewable notes. You oftentimes look back at your notes and are unsure yourself of what the important talking points were.

How to Take Better Notes

1. Focus on the Essentials

Capture only the key points:

Action Items: Who needs to do what. Include specific deadlines, responsible parties, and any dependencies or resources needed to complete tasks.

Decisions: Agreements reached during the meeting. Document any formal decisions, policy changes, or strategic directions that were finalized, including the reasoning behind them and any conditions or prerequisites discussed.

Important Updates: Details impacting future discussions. This includes project status changes, new initiatives, or shifts in priorities that could affect upcoming work. Be particularly mindful of updates that require follow-up or have downstream effects on other teams.

2. Use a Simple Template

Create a consistent format to organize your notes. Here's a simple template to follow:

Meeting Title & Date

Attendees

Agenda Items (with bullet points for each topic)

Action Items & Owners

Next Steps & Deadlines

Having a structured template helps you capture information systematically and makes it easier to review later.

3. Review Right After the Meeting

Go through your notes immediately to highlight key takeaways while the discussion is fresh. This will allow you to cross off any irrelevant details and hone in on the main talking points of the meeting.

Taking a few minutes to clarify and organize your notes right after the meeting helps ensure nothing important gets lost and makes it easier to share accurate summaries with team members who couldn't attend. Additionally, this practice helps you identify any points that need immediate follow-up or clarification while the context is still fresh in your mind.

An Easier Alternative to Manual Notetaking: Montee AI

If manual notetaking feels like too much work, you should checkout Montee AI. Montee AI is an AI meeting note taker that automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes your meetings for you. You can also chat with a chatbot afterwards and directly ask the meeting questions based on the transcript

Why Use Montee?

No Meeting Widgets: Montee is an app that you directly record via your iphone microphone, so it means there will be no “meeting widget” like other meeting recording tools.

Automatic Transcripts: Get a full record of your meeting, both audio and written transcription.

AI Summaries: High level overview, action items, and detailed summaries.

Interactive Chatbox: Ask Montee questions about the meeting transcript and get immediate answers.

Secure and Safe: Recordings are encrypted and stores securely in our datacenters.

Take the stress out of notetaking. With Montee AI, you can focus on participating in the discussion while Montee handles the details. Whether you’re struggling to keep up or want to save time, Montee is the perfect tool to help you stay organized and productive.

Try Montee AI today!