Volume2, Issue 6 - June 2001

I teach an extremely popular course on Minute Taking - and one of the most common questions I get asked is how to take notes while listening. These techniques are helpful for both Minute Taking as well as taking messages while on the telephone.

1.

Keywords - try not to write down entire sentences - you will very quickly lose your place and concentration. The average person speaks at about 250 words per minute - can you write that fast? I didn't think so - and besides, all the words are not necessary. If you are truly listening, (as opposed to just hearing the words), the message is going into your brain - you just have to be able to pull it back out. Keywords are all that is necessary.

Nouns and verbs are the kind of keywords I'm talking about. Instead of writing down "Mr. Jones would like you to return his phone call sometime today" the keywords are "Jones, call, today". After you hang up (or later when you are transcribing the minutes) you can put more detail into it. During the call, or during the meeting, just use the words that will allow you to remember what the entire sentence really was.

If you were listening to this tip at a meeting, what keywords would you use to write down the meaning of this conversation? "Keywords".

Keep Focus. I have definitely been in the meetings that are truly boring! And, it is quite easy to allow your mind to wander a bit. Have a running conversation in your head (you are probably talking to yourself anyway, right?) about all the work that is on your desk, all the phone calls you have yet to return, etc. etc. Each time you find your own conversation taking off on its own - go back to the meeting. Repeat the words you just heard (the keywords), as well as paraphrase to get your own meaning in your mind.

You keep focus by not allowing your own conversations to proceed without you. You must "hear" what is going on in your own mind, but not listen to it. Many times we "hear" the meeting and "listen" to our conversations - we just need to reverse that.

Listen to Understand - before you start recording. Try to grasp the main ideas (keywords). If we understand the entire conversation, then keywords are easy. If we are trying to write down before we understand, we won't have easy recall.

Listen with a Goal. Your goal would be to re-teach what you heard to someone else. That is one of the goals of minutes - to let the people who could not attend be brought up to speed.