How to Take Notes for Work | Note-taking Tutorial for Professionals
About this video
Jeff Su argues work note-taking must be action-oriented, unlike personal or academic notes, because employers may restrict which apps you can use, meetings move too fast to ask people to repeat themselves, and notes must be easily shareable for collaboration. Drawing on a technique he says he developed over seven years as a management consultant and now a product marketer, he uses three templates. ‘Notes For Self’ in Google Docs has Key Links, a Top-of-mind section for four to five workstreams plus outstanding questions, and a reusable note format: prepare the date, topic, person, objective and your questions before the meeting, take simple bullets during it, then spend five to 10 minutes afterwards summarizing Key Takeaways and emailing them to the other person. For single-team meetings he switches to Google Sheets, with separate rows per topic showing owner, time needed and reference links, a rotating note-taker, and action items in a separate column. For cross-functional meetings, all teams’ notes sit on one tab so each team can see the others’ work, with each team’s point of contact adding agenda items beforehand and marketing taking notes and summarizing actions.
Key takeaways
- Make work notes action-oriented: every meeting should end with clear takeaways and specific action items for each attendee.
- Prepare before the meeting with date, topic, person, objective and questions, then spend five to 10 minutes afterwards summarizing key takeaways.
- Keep a personal notes page with Key Links, a Top-of-mind section for current workstreams, and outstanding questions to resolve before next steps.
- Use a spreadsheet for team meetings: one row per topic with owner, time and links, a rotating note-taker, and action items in their own column.
- Put cross-functional meeting notes for all teams on one shared tab so teams can see each other’s agenda items, notes and actions.
Episode details: published May 4, 2021 · 9:45 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Jeff Su’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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