I should more often, but don't feel like I am good at it, but one way to stay not good at it, is to not try. Problem 2 is that more than once I have gotten distracted by some point being discussed and whoops-where-did-the-notes-go?
If I needed notes for my meetings at work, my work would not be well documented. But there are a few meetings that actually require structural preparation because they do not fall within my daily business, such as job interviews. So rarely.
I always take notes for meetings I attend, and I often offer to share them.
But once at $EARLIER_JOB during a routine technical meeting I shared my notes without asking if anyone wanted to see them, and one of the attendees responded like I had personally attacked him: sent a scathing email CC'd to two levels of management above me demanding to know why I was surveilling him, personally.
(We had been talking about the logging feature in an automated deployment.)
Never because I'm abysmal at following conversations in meetings, but I happily take other tasks.
It's because of my AuDHD, audio processing disorder, broken ear cilia, and tinitus that make meetings extremely hard for me. Add a secondary language and poor audio quality in the mix, and that meeting will knock me out for a day or two.
This entry was edited (Friday, January 9, 2026, 7:04 AM)
I've never been good at taking notes. I mean I'm genuinely terrible at it. Usually if I commit myself fully to doing the best I can, I am able to remember I'm taking notes at least 25 seconds into the discussion but then I forget.
I usually take them for myself by hand on paper and then later transcribe them if needed, but I don't volunteer to take them for the group.
Edit to add- some of my notes are pictures I doodled to visualize things and if it's something I'm sharing I take a pic and upload that with the notes.
This entry was edited (Friday, January 9, 2026, 8:10 PM)
No. I worked in tech (and now in libraries) and serve on some civic boards. I have done a LOT of note taking and now I am done. In the places I have been often there feels like there's a gendered expectation (i.e. who is female-presenting, you take the notes) and I push back against that often indirectly but sometimes directly.
I take better notes than most people, so if I want good records of meetings I've got to do it myself.
I'm no longer the official note-taker for one org, and the past few note-takers have not taken comprehensive notes, so a lot of info about ideas, policy, discussions, &c has been lost.
But I can't go around taking rogue notes because organizational politics.
I am rarely. I recognize that note-taking is often unfairly gendered and as a man I should offset that and put more effort into volunteering. I also know that the person taking notes has less time and focus to speak -- a double penalty. I am going to try to shift from rarely to often; I'd like to be doing more of my fair share.
I'm a "rarely" because I usually only do it in breakout sessions in larger meetings. I enjoy distilling what others have said and have learned to do it rather quickly while still putting in my own thoughts as well. It's definitely a specific sort of skill set that not everyone has.
I want to have notes to refer to later, and it would take longer to wait for a volunteer if I didn't just do it so we can move on with the important bits.
1) I get too interested in the discussion and forget to write notes.
2) I get too bored by the discussion and forget to write notes. Might doodle.
3) What does this even mean? With hieroglyphs I have to decipher instead of full sentences. "Product design (?) Ask Philip about dFKEJREIOFH immediately!"
dr2chase
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Aljoscha Rittner (beandev)
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •David B. Himself
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Infrapink (he/his/him)
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Evan Prodromou
in reply to Infrapink (he/his/him) • • •James M.
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Ben Zanin
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •I always take notes for meetings I attend, and I often offer to share them.
But once at $EARLIER_JOB during a routine technical meeting I shared my notes without asking if anyone wanted to see them, and one of the attendees responded like I had personally attacked him: sent a scathing email CC'd to two levels of management above me demanding to know why I was surveilling him, personally.
(We had been talking about the logging feature in an automated deployment.)
That was A Lesson™.
Darcy Casselman
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Adrien Plazas
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Never because I'm abysmal at following conversations in meetings, but I happily take other tasks.
It's because of my AuDHD, audio processing disorder, broken ear cilia, and tinitus that make meetings extremely hard for me. Add a secondary language and poor audio quality in the mix, and that meeting will knock me out for a day or two.
Geoff Coffey
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •kuulman
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •DeeAnn Little
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •I usually take them for myself by hand on paper and then later transcribe them if needed, but I don't volunteer to take them for the group.
Edit to add- some of my notes are pictures I doodled to visualize things and if it's something I'm sharing I take a pic and upload that with the notes.
Ian Turton
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Graham Perrin
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Evan Prodromou
in reply to Graham Perrin • • •Graham Perrin
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •I did take minutes of meetings, years ago, before my hearing became too poor.
The rate of increase of twist of my sense of humour is inversely equal to the rate of loss of hearing.
I have a twisted sense of humour …
Evan Prodromou
in reply to Graham Perrin • • •Jessamyn
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Bob Jonkman reshared this.
Bob Jonkman
in reply to Jessamyn • • •@jessamyn
I take better notes than most people, so if I want good records of meetings I've got to do it myself.
I'm no longer the official note-taker for one org, and the past few note-takers have not taken comprehensive notes, so a lot of info about ideas, policy, discussions, &c has been lost.
But I can't go around taking rogue notes because organizational politics.
Evan Prodromou
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •MrCopilot
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •lakelady
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Sam Clemente
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •I never volunteer, but usually we have the person running the meeting take notes, so I usually end up taking notes
Other times I’ll just take notes for my own sake in other meetings that I’m not running, usually to report back to other people on my team
Olivier Mehani
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •Matt Noyes
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •I AM BANKSY ☕ / 🗑🔥
in reply to Evan Prodromou • • •My life long note taking outcomes:
1) I get too interested in the discussion and forget to write notes.
2) I get too bored by the discussion and forget to write notes. Might doodle.
3) What does this even mean? With hieroglyphs I have to decipher instead of full sentences. "Product design (?) Ask Philip about dFKEJREIOFH immediately!"
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Evan Prodromou • •Evan Prodromou
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •