Note Taking

Today’s post is, as you might guess from the title, about note taking for administrative professionals. While it is not about taking meeting minutes, I feel the practice of note taking helps you take better minutes. If you’re interested, here is a link to my post about taking minutes on complex/technical topics.

I started my note-taking journey early in my career. Perhaps I was influenced by the vintage rock star admin: Miss Della Street, who never went anywhere without her steno pad.

It probably had more to do with the fact my first full-time admin role was the Program Assistant (equal parts receptionist, admin assistant and technical writer) in the Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) department at Fred Hutch. I had to quickly learn the basics of safety training, biohazard, radioactive and chemical safety because I took notes at the monthly safety committee meetings, wrote the monthly newsletter and proofread the safety manuals.

All my learning was on the job by taking notes and asking questions. I’m curious by nature and I like to understand how things work and why. In my career, I’ve supported anywhere from 2 – 9 leaders at a given time and primarily supported doctors. They don’t have time to revisit anything – they need focus on patient care. I needed to develop a solid, repeatable, scalable note taking system.

A quick Google search revealed very few people have eidetic or photographic memory, anywhere from 0-10%. It is unlikely you have a photographic memory. This is my first tip: don’t rely on your memory.

EAs and other admin pros do a high volume of task switching every day. As people head back into the office, we’re returning to what I call: The Drive By – random people who stop by your desk throughout the day and interrupt you without bothering to acknowledge they’re disrupting your work flow. They’ll walk away and now you’re stuck trying to pick up the threads of what you were working on.

I feel taking notes is key to being organized as an admin pro and a core skill. I’ve noticed that admins of any level (Receptionist to EA) who fail to take notes are not productive or effective. They apologize a lot, ask the same questions and struggle getting their work done on time. This cycle negatively impacts their confidence and fuels Imposter Syndrome.

Make your job easier: take notes.

Taking notes and minutes are skills to be learned and practiced regularly. I view notes as minutes for me. What helps me do my job efficiently is I treat notes much like minutes: summarize the instructions, identify due dates, task owners, resources, stakeholders, ask questions.

If you’re groaning right now about having to take notes and how you hoped to be done with notes after finishing school. Sorry cupcake, the learning never ends for the admin professional. Don’t believe me? ChatGPT didn’t exist 1 year ago. Now, AI chatbots and sweet new ways to leverage them are a hot topic all over LinkedIn. Keep learning or get left behind.

Here are the benefits of taking notes:

• Time saver – by capturing all the details from the jump, you don’t have to procrastinate because you failed to take notes and have to go back to your executive because you can’t recall the details of the assignment. Now 2 people have lost productive work time.
• Reference – by keeping notes for every meeting you attend, you can review them later, refresh your memory. My notes have saved my bacon countless times. Over time, they help me look around corners and see patterns that are otherwise missed without notes.
• Documentation – everything from instructions or links for rarely used processes, performance, preferences, to post event notes on venues, catering, and hotels.
• Reflection – take time reflect and summarize discussions, projects that went well and those that flopped, record key takeaways and lessons learned.
• Taking notes will improve your minute taking. You’ll develop the ability to summary information as well as tracking team metrics, deadlines, owners.

Note taking system

You need a system for note taking in order to build your muscle memory. To keep things super simple, I recommend using the same system for note and minutes.

Physical

I started with paper and pen by creating a daily running list of tasks. Like a bullet journal, I transferred unfinished tasks to the next day.

Ten years ago, I had carpel tunnel release surgery on both hands. As a result of carpel tunnel syndrome, I lost a lot of hand strength and muscle tone so my handwriting is illegible. Great for art journaling. Terrible for recording work notes.

At the time, I wanted to convert to digital but my employer was a non-profit and didn’t offer OneNote as part of the standard computer install. Not wanting to purchase a license on my own dime, I searched for free options.

Digital

Outlook Tasks – it’s there and I tried it, but don’t like that my tasks are separate from other notes.

EverNote. It’s simple and is organized like a binder so I could capture everything in one spot. I tried it for a while and still use it for my own personal note keeping.

I tried TeuxDeux for a year. Nice as a task list, but I didn’t feel it was good for project or event management. Minutes were recorded elsewhere and I like to keep it simple.

Goodnotes. Nearly every company I’ve worked for used Windows OS. At home, I use Mac and Goodnotes for personal journaling. It is easy to learn and use. I love that you can annotate pdfs and I keep a digital planner for myself.

In my previous company, OneNote was part of the standard install so I adopted it and haven’t looked back. I love it because it integrates with other Office products. I can link meeting details in my minutes. A super simple, all in one solution. I’ve tried using special OneNote templates, but find they get in my way. I still prefer a hybrid of Bullet Journal & narrative style of note taking.

Experiment