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Comment by tanin | Hacker News Reader

I've tried this system before. It didn't work well when using in a workplace. Mainly because the info/knowledge in workplace is scattered and sometimes incoherent.

But, then, I've realised that this is from Cornell, and the note taking system here is for students noting lectures.

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I've designed specific "note-taking" sheets for regular meetings I attend. There are separate places for me to write down "Things I want to say" and "Things I need to take action on" and "Things I need to to pass to other people."

As time goes on, I refined the page. We all travel a bit, so I added a section for "where's the staff this week."

I liked this idea so much that I've created similar templates for each of my regular meetings. A project control meeting has a different format than a staff meeting.

Would it be possible for you to share your templates?

I'm very interested in ways to improve my meeting notes, and it sounds like you've already done a fair bit of testing on your templates.

They're mostly optimized for my specific meetings. Since the meetings are weekly, I do a fair bit of optimization from week to week.

The biggest tip I can suggest is to create the template with a pen, instead of making a formal template on the computer and printing it out. Iteration is your friend in this case.

Interesting: I have icons I tag for action items I have to take (* but I draw it as a 5 pointed star) (note that passing things on, and producing something are both action items for me), questions I have (?), and things that are important, surprising or urgent (!).

Agreed, icons is the way to go here for meeting note-taking. I use a box for things I want to make sure get covered during the meeting, and I check it off after I bring it up or someone else does. And I use a triangle next to a box for things I want to follow up with someone privately or ask about off line after the meeting.

And the very important star for things I don’t want to forget or that are important.

Most people just interrupt because they are afraid they’ll forget and must bring up their very important point right now.

I also sometimes make a diagram showing the seating arrangement of everyone in the meeting so I can know who was present and refer to them by name if I’m unfamiliar with them.

Another note taking trick I use is to use circled numbers to refer to things elsewhere on this page or other pages.

Most important of all is that I never use a notebook with rippable paper; these notebooks are important documents I keep with me forever. Every page gets a page number and the date at the top. I reserve the first page of each notebook for a table of contents. Whenever something happens that I might need to refer to later I put it and its page number in the table of contents. Many table of contents entries end up with many page numbers after them, such as pages with T-shirt ideas, game ideas, and haikus. Because of this system I can say “see #3 on 2016-05-24” and go right to something I noted years ago. I go through about one notebook per year and have them going back a long time.

Whether you are aware and just didn't mention it, or are not aware that you have essentially recreated the bullet journal (see: a search engine), might as well go all the way and get a Leuchtturm 1917 notebook for the new year. It has page numbers and a table of contents pre-printed for you. $20, but for something that pretty much lasts the whole year, not overly expensive.

Understood! My system started with franklin covey from back in the day, but I need graph paper for my notes for various reasons.

My system is much like yours in terms of notebook organization- I use it like a daily diary with TOC and all. I use graph-ruled composition notebooks.

It actually sounds a lot like what I do, which is a close cousin to the good old-fashioned scientific notebook. This is a neat read that I just found searching:

https://www.training.nih.gov/assets/Lab_Notebook_508_(new).p...

My note-taking format is actually a simpler version of bulletjournal.

Bulletjournal is a bit heavy weight. But maybe BulletJournal is meant to be an example what you can personalize to meet your own preference.

I use this method almost exclusively. Even for things like meetings (to my sibling's comment). The trade-off is that I tend to only take notes on one side of the page, using the back side of the previous page for organizing my thoughts I need to say in a meeting (or in a class- I still take one occasionally for my interests).

So I use a lot of paper, and look forward to the day that I can really use my method virtually. But the time it saves helping me learn stuff (by making it super easy to do a quiz-like review) keeps me coming back.

The last time Cornell notes was discussed, a user had made a detailed comment on how he uses the system in his IT job.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20271407

This is an awesome reference. I had read the original SA article and skipped this discussion (my focus at the time was more on student techniques). You've linked to an excellent thread.

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