11 Aug Six ways note taking makes your job easier

Note taking is often overlooked, and yet it could make your job so much easier. How?

It Boosts Your Image

Taking notes at work and in meetings sends a powerful message to those around you. It demonstrates that you’re listening, engaged, and processing the discussion – and also reassures your colleagues that the information they’re volunteering is important and valued, especially if you are able to recall their comments from your notes in later meetings. In this way, note taking can improve your working relationships with your colleagues.

It Encourages You to Focus on the Important Things

Researchers at Keele University found that the chief value of note taking was storing information in the brain so that it could be consulted later. So many meetings are mired in waffle and time-wasting. Note taking allows you to pinpoint and remember the important ideas and actions.

It Provides You With A Clear Set of Actions

Rather than walking away from a long meeting tired and dazed with a vague sense of what you need to do with the information you’ve been given, effective note taking will provide you with a clear set of actions for yourself and other members of the team.

It Forces You to Engage and Listen

We’re human and our minds wander. Note taking encourages you to keep your attention on those around you, creating a better team dynamic and making sure you process the information. Interestingly, research by Oppenheimer and Mueller found that writing notes by hand as opposed to typing allows for greater retention of the information, as the writer tends to engage more with the information rather than just transcribing it mindlessly.

It Enhances Your Performance

Within education, students who read over their notes after class are more successful in exams, attaining better grades at school. This same information-retention benefit applies to the workplace. Many of us are guilty of taking notes in meetings and filing these away never to see the light of day ever again, but re-reading notes after a meeting really does make that information stick. If you tend to let your meeting notes languish in abandoned notebooks on your desk, it is likely that you are not getting the full benefit from them.

It Improves Your Reliability and Record-Keeping

While it’s important to absorb information first hand, keeping a written record of meetings is invaluable, as our memories aren’t always entirely reliable. Precise, well-structured notes will provide you with a fallback if you’re unable to recall an important statistic or action.

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