Our unofficial survey of how people take notes reveals that of those that do, most:

– capture what they hear chronologically, starting at the top of the page
– only use words
– write line-by-line in sentences
– use several pages in their notebooks if the meeting goes on for a while.

In addition, some people find themselves drawn to taking down lots of detail, perhaps even scribing pretty much verbatim what’s being said.

What are some of the alternative ways to take notes?

2. Use the Cornell method.

3. Take some inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci who produced some of the best notebooks of all time (right).

4. Do what Bill Gates does (supposedly) – split your note-taking page into quadrants and record different kinds of information in each – eg key themes, questions, references and actions.

5. Experiment with our principles for power note taking…which we’ll explain tomorrow.

Tags: leadership, skills, thinking