How to Take Notes for Work | Note-taking Tutorial for Professionals
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2024
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🧑🏻💼 Let's get one thing clear: taking notes for work is not - and should not be - the same as taking notes for personal or academic use. In this note-taking tutorial for professionals, I draw from my experiences as Product Marketer and as a former Management Consultant and share exactly how to take notes for work.
Not only do I share the note-taking technique I developed specifically for work over the past 7 years, I also provide you with templates so you can implement these professional note-taking concepts immediately. Whether you manage projects as a product marketer or management consultant, you are under a lot of time pressure to take accurate notes.
You will still benefit from this video even if you are a student looking for note-taking techniques on how to study in college because while other RUclips videos teach you how to take pretty notes, the note-taking method in this video is action-oriented, it pushes you to get work done.
Let's dive in ✍️
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
00:09 Why work notes are different
01:08 Guiding principles
02:25 Meeting notes for myself
05:03 Meeting notes for 1 team
07:52 Meeting notes for multiple teams
09:15 Download templates
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I'm Jeff, a full time Product Marketer. In my spare time I like to tinker with tools and create systems that help me get things done faster - or as one of my friends puts it: "Get better at being lazy" 😏
If you'd like to talk, I'd love to hear from you. Messaging me on Instagram (@j.sushie) directly will be the quickest way to get a response!
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Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and may not reflect that of my employer
#takeNotesForWork #notetaking #productivity
How do you currently take notes at work? 🗒
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
00:09 Why work notes are different
01:08 Guiding principles
02:25 Meeting notes for myself
05:03 Meeting notes for 1 team
07:52 Meeting notes for multiple teams
09:15 Download templates
I love these templates. My trick to meeting note success is email! Every meeting has a calendar invite, I forward the invite to myself, update the email body with my meeting note template that I saved as a signature (Outlook trick), and then store my notes in my email until I can process them into my other systems (to do list, documentation, etc). By forwarding the calendar invite, I have a list of all the attendees and meeting details (date, time, agenda) without needing to retype the information.
Wow, that is a fantastic idea Veronica! Thanks so much for sharing!!
I started using OneNote earlier this year to manage my notes. For each new meeting I would open up a new section, Import meeting details under the Home tab and select the meeting I’m taking notes on. It will fill in the details and you can add notes from there. This was a game changer for me because it captures all of the meeting invite content, attendees invited and time of meeting. I just add my notes and who actually attended and that’s it. :-)
@@heatherfranco5810 that sounds like a seamless workflow! Nice!!
Tysm!
@@JeffSu I actually do the same. However, I love the idea of documenting all of my meetings in spreadsheet to refer to them later on. I added another column titled "project" since it's easier to filter by project name than date or agend. As a Program Manager it will help me be more efficient
Kudos for the originality! I feel like a lot of RUclipsrs are repeating the same tips over and over, but you’ve given us actually useful and original tips! Thank you!
Thank you Clarissa! Glad to hear it!! Were you talking about the note-taking techniques for school?
@@JeffSu yes, but the gmail tips video was my favourite! Seeing the number of unread emails go up gave me a little bit of anxiety and with these tips, I can manage my emails way better. As a struggling university student, I’ll take all the useful hacks I can get
@@clarissadesimoni that’s exactly how I felt at first when I got like over 10 unreads a day in college! Glad I wasn’t the only one 😂
@@JeffSu yes, my uni sends lots of email every week and most of them are promos that apply to a handful of students, so you can imagine how I feel about them. Plus, I’m subscribed to a few newsletters that I like, but I wanna read them in my own time, not just because I wanna decrease the number on the notifications
@@clarissadesimoni makes sense!!
Hi Jeff! I am currently a college student who will become an intern as a management consultant intern at Accenture in less than 10 days and I just want to say how amazing your videos are. I was literally panicking about my upcoming internship for not being able to handle it well and your tips truly helped my anxiety. Do you mind also posting more videos on how to network or build a better relationship as an intern/ entry level analyst inside of the company? In addition, I follow you both on RUclips and 小红书，and as a native Chinese speaker, your Chinese is so fluent!! I’d love to connect with you and chat more since I am currently diving into the management consulting industry and I’d love to hear any experiences and suggestions you have. Thank you!
First of all, congrats on landing the internship, that's amazing 😄
I have videos around those topics planned so watch out for them 😉
@@JeffSu Thank you so much!! Just another question...I am thinking about using those team notes templates for the upcoming meetings, but I am worried that I will come off as a "control freak" or annoying among my teammates. Do you think it's okay to suggest everyone in my team use google sheets instead of their own note-taking methods? If they have never used google sheets, does that mean they need to learn from scratch?
@@charlenefu6222 start using it yourself first. If they like it they will naturally follow 😁
I started watching your channel last week and I think your content is AWESOME!
My work is so much easier now!
Thanks Jeff!
Thank you Bernardo! Glad to hear it! You're very welcome!!
With this pandemic situation and how we jumps from one meeting to another, note taking really helps.. and note taking with a good technique will definitely helps..
I'll be sharing this with my team..
Thanks Jeff!!
Glad to hear it Rusty, thanks for letting me know 😁
Hey Jeff!
Just wanna say thanks a million for uploading this great content and sharing the templates with your viewers. Even though I've been working for close to a decade, the things you've shared will be extremely helpful especially in becoming more productive in this virtual world!
Thanks again and best wishes from Singapore! :)
DK
That's awesome Damon, glad you found the content (and templates) helpful! Stay safe and well in SG!
I am pleased to see that Excel is used to capture notes. In fact, I started doing so many years ago. But, back then people think I am crazy for not using Word. Lol
Hahaha maybe they're the crazy ones :)
So grateful to run into your channel and learn your pro tips for PM, for FREE. Truly appreciate you for sharing this content as I was specifically looking for help with meeting note-taking, this is incredible.
You're extremely welcome! All this information should be free 😁
Thank you for this. I just sent this to my daughter who got her first job out of college. Great content!
best of luck to her!
We do something similars. Tip from my side: Always assign people to action items (called „deliverables“ in our documents), that‘s necessary for people to feel responsible. I think I like the idea of having multiple meetings in one document and will try implementing it.
Excellent tip, thanks for sharing Martin!
Changing industries and your videos have been extremely helpful. Appreciate that you're not charging for the docs/sheets.
Haha of course not! Should be available for everyone :)
I saved this video two years ago because I thought it was interesting. I can’t thank you enough for this! Game changer for my work today
Wooohoooo that's what I love to hear 😁
This guy's single meeting notes are larger than our whole project documentation.
😂
Haha
I hope that was a joke…
Good point
Love that you mention about the google sheet shortcuts and also the shortcut symbols!
Thank you Kuan! Yes it's pretty natural to me now and I find that I have to make the effort to say it out loud sometimes or else I'd forget
I like this type of content so much! I watched this video 6 times in 2 days. I even watched it at work, to use the same colors and font "Work Sans" for a different table. Thank you!
That's awesome! Hope you have a nice work notes setup now!
Love how you structure your videos. I only needed the part about note-taking for myself and only watched that part, thank you!
You're very welcome! I'm all about practical and concise tips so I'm super glad you found what you were looking for immediately 😁
This has to be the most informative channel on youtube for professional development/productivity. Thank you!
No arguments from me Savannah 😉. You're very welcome!
I use onenote for note taking.
I love the meeting details function it has.
When you press that and select the right meeting, everything is imported from Outlook. Such as attendees, topic, notes sent with the invitation. Makes it all so much easier.
And no need for followup emails with takeaways because a chat is automatically created in Teams where you can put those takeaways in a Loop component.
But besides the technological solutions, loving your tips on how to increase the quality of note taking. I was (and still am) really struggling with this.
I'll be using your tips for sure.
Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Bam instant smashing like button as every Tuesday ahaha !!! Now I can watch the vid 🤣🙃
Smashing that like button AND commenting? Must be Thomas again 😉
I feel like you've made this incredibly complicated but if it works for you, awesome. Thanks for the video.
Haha yea it works for me, but totally understand different people have different styles! 😁
Am i the first one
After watching the video - he helped me so much, I found this channel recently, but I've watched all the videos 🤣🤣. Thanks dude
Hi Bojidar - Yes you are the first one 😂, congrats! Glad you found this channel AND you're getting value from it!!
@@JeffSu have never been the first in any video 🤣. Hope to see lots more from you, I just can't get enough of your tips and tricks 🔥🔥🔥
@@bojidarkamenski3432 I’ll be uploading videos as long as you’re here to see it 😁🙌🙌
@@JeffSu tahanks man, sorry for wasting your time making you answer my stupid comments. You are a true legend and I'd love to see this channel becoming really big. Good luck, stay safe, and have an awesome day 🔥🔥🔥🔥
@@bojidarkamenski3432 Not at all my friend! Thanks again for your kind words, and you too!
Practical and digestible advice! Stumbled on your videos rather late and by happy coincidence. Excellent content, Jeff!
I'm happy you're here now Rozan! 😁
Thank you Jeff! I just got hired :) I need to organize my thoughts properly and take down notes while undergoing training. Your Excel template is what I needed. Thank you again!
Great! Best of luck in the new job Marj 😁
These templates are great-- I've been taking notes for multi-team meetings in Sheets for a while, but you've clearly refined the formatting. Thanks for sharing!
That's awesome to hear KDY! Thanks for letting me know 🙌🙌
Those template are brilliant! I've recently been thrown in the deep end of having to interface and keep track of multiple teams. That last template and approach is gold!
Woohoooo that's what I love to hear 😁
The information shared for note taking was done very well. For action items I like to put action-open (name) - (then action). When the action is complete I update that line to action-done. This lets me do a key word search for "action-open". I can then see complete list of open action items, who is assigned and on what meeting date was the action item opened.
That's an awesome tip Ross! Thanks for sharing!!
Awesome video dude. Note taking is something I need to get better at. I have always been able to remember meeting content and avoided taking notes because I would never look back at them. But now part of a large project team I see the value in having nots not for myself but for others to utilize.
Yes! You definitely hit the nail on the head!
This is one of the best channels on RUclips. Give him his flowers!
No arguments from me 😁
When taking notes in Excel, you could keep the template in a separate tab at the bottom (named "template") and just copy that over for the new week. Saves you from having to delete the content from the previous copied week.
Also, I just stumbled across your channel and have now insta-subscribed.
🤯 omg that's a GREAT idea!! I'm going to do that right now. Thanks for teaching me something new Ryan!!
Glad you like the channel as well :)
Another possibility is to write a script that adds a fresh section at the top with all needed formatting. With one or two clicks, this would set up the next date/notes area.
@@JeffSu I was thinking that with some coding you could have a button that automatically adds a new meeting template. Even you could indicate how many subjects will be discused and add the rows for them!
@@PaulJCarpenter like an excel macro?
@@contact585 that’s a good idea!!
For those who may find it a little annoying to have to empty and delete content from the rows (@8:58 )... I would recommend creating a macro (Google Sheets or Excel) that pastes the formatted rows as you want them into the empty section. Great video!
Good point!! Thanks for sharing!
Are we allowed to bribe Tim Cook.. love your humour and enjoy your videos
Hahaha glad someone caught that!!! Thank you Anurodh 😁
This is SO helpful! My notes tend to get cluttered and messy so I'm happy that I stumbled upon this video! New sub :)
Glad to hear it Soo! Thank you 😁
This content is amazing Jeff, I could say this it the best video I’ve watched. Much appreaciate for giving the templates.
You're very very welcome Tran ;), glad you liked it!
Hi Jeff, thanks for the informative video!
Just wanted to mention that if you'd like to avoid the 2-step copy on Google Sheets for formatting purposes you could simply select the row with the formatting and right-click -> Add row below and the formatting will automatically copy. 🙂🙂
Great point Dennis! Thanks for sharing!! 😁😁
Love the framework and approach. Great stuff. Thanks for sharing. Definitely going to try it in my new role.
Glad to hear it Suleiman! Let me know how it goes!
Hi Jeff, as usual. I loooove your tips because of YOU, I improved my work efficiency and like you, I used a lot of google products (docs, sheets, etc.) along with apple products for my work. Keep it going!
That's awesome to hear Siti! Glad you found this helpful 😁
A little late to the party but I wanted to command you for all your helpful videos! I have two suggestions regarding the templates in Sheets or Excel: 1) just create a placeholder with the right format and no entries, so that you do not have to remove the entries every time you want to prepare for a new meeting. 2) (Meeting with the team) format all the empty rows with the same format as one of the entry rows, so that you do not need to copy the content and remove or copy the format every time. You said in some other videos something along the lines "if you have to do something 3 times, automate it/create a template for it"
That's a GREAT point, thanks for the input!!
More videos like this please. Helped me tremendously. Work productivity and tips +
Will do Bradley 😁😁
this is SO HELPFUL! thank you for sharing this! I work community engagement, and I think that a lot of these tips can transfer over well to the non-profit sector. the tips about Google Sheets are particularly helpful. please up the amazing work.
Glad to hear it!! Thank you for the kind words 😁
I LOVE your content! My mind was blown every time after I watched your video 😂Thank you!!! :)
Hahaha that's great! Was your mind blown after every single video though 😛
Awesome video, super informative, quick to the point, free downable templates!! Love the editing of the video and use of youtube chapters! Just subscribed!!
Thank you my friend!! Glad you liked this 😁
hi ! found your video a almost a year ago and i'm still using it! my favorite is the XFn meetings template. I have sooo many meetings and need to remember things. So i basically use it as a daily log. I changed the agenda section to "attendees" so i know who was in the meeting. I also changed the colors to a more girly color scheme lol. Any way this literally saves me. Also everyone is impressed with my note taking system. They always ask me hey do you remember xyz and then i can just control F. thank you!
Woohoo that's awesome!
I'm really new to this since i just switch job and this is really helpful and gives me alot of ease in my work. Thank you Jeff.
You're very welcome! 😁
Great video. Simple and efficient. I've struggled with organizing my notes and think your approach will work perfectly. Thank you!
Glad to hear it Eric!
Hey Jeff,
Congratulations on achieving your milestones here on RUclips. Amazingly deserved and appreciated.
I am a working professional, just starting my career. I absolutely love your content and look forward to watching you and learn from you more and more.
On that note, if it would be possible for you, I would love if you could make a video on how you ideate your content, edit your videos, the tools you use for minute detailing on the videos and the overall process of a fully finished video, end to end.
I think all of us can benefit from that as well. Just a thought.
Thanks again for creating such amazingly helpful content. You're an amazing person. 😄
Hi Abhishek, thanks for the idea! I might do a video on my video creation process down the line :)
@@JeffSu Thanks for considering. Cheers 😄
@@abhishekroy7521 Of course :)
Thank you Jeff! I use Docs to do similar templates but I like how Sheets is primed so I don’t need to add tables!
Hi Leinaala! That's great to hear! Do you think you will replace a few of your Doc notes templates with Sheets now?
Didn’t even know I needed this video... But I did! Thanks!
Glad you found value from it Saurabh 😁
Great video. Starting a new job in a week where I need to run multiple teams. I am going to give this a try once I figure out what tools are available to me.
Awesome, good luck!
Launch an iPhone 20 that has the same functionalities as the iPhone 10 was my fav! 😂 Jokes aside, great advice! 🙌🏼✨
Hahahaha glad you caught that Claudia! 😁
I love these note taking videos
And I love making them, what a coincidence 😁
I'm mostly jealous that you go to meetings with agendas. :) I use similar templates, though this has given me some good ideas to refine how I'm doing it. Thanks for the great content.
Not a problem Christopher, thanks for letting me know 🙌🙌
Hey man, just found your channel. Your videos are such high quality and I love your energy
Glad you're here Wayne!! And thank you!
Yesssssss the long awaited video!
First comment and thumbs up. Then going to watch hahaha
Thanks MersedP!! Let me know if you liked it after you watched it 😉
Very helpful! I'm responsible for so many projects and teams this really helps me get organized
Glad to hear it Felix!!
I like your style: your haircut and your shirt. Sharp but not too loud.
Thanks Ronak!
I love this video.
I especially love the 3:05, where you made a subtle joke about iPhone being the same.
I can relate from my practice, that you are absolutely right, despite me, using entirely different techniques - but in general - the same points are maintained. :D
Glad someone caught the joke there! 😁
The thumbnail tho! A real book! 📖 💞 !!! And the suit 110% Yaleie!!🤩
🙌🙌 always happy to see you appreciate it Sak Beh 😁😁
Your Google Drive Video Changed my Life Drastically lol
I aim to please 😁! Are you using it for work or school?
Lol emphasis on drastically.
(Use for work)
Which video? Wanna learn and apply too!
@@ninarangyo Search for my Google Drive video!
can we have the link please
I'm sorry but the speed with which we're now jumping from meeting to meeting there's never enough time to create such a neatly created doc. I'll share my technique to anyone who's intrested:
I'm using Google Workspace, so my note taking happens in Keep.
1. Open Google Keep
2. Create a new note and in the title write the name of your calendar meeting's name, date, and name of attendees (full name if its someone you don't know and just the first name for someone you work a lot with).
3. Pin the new note so in case you have to look up something in your notes it wont jump to the bottom and will stay on top.
4. Use upper part for notes - use short key sentences to note key element. Use lower part for actions and next steps.
5. Set a reminder if you need to come back to your note. (If setup correctly this reminder will show up in your Google Calendar.
What a great way to go about it! Thanks for sharing Bolerophon!
writing notes on google docs while meeting with Satya. Love it!
Heck yea 😁
Watching your all productivity tips and tricks videos and applying those in my day to day work/study and feeling way more productive and organized. Thanks a lot such an awesome content. Love from India!
Glad to hear it Abhie!! I hope future videos will continue to prove valuable to you 😁
@@JeffSu ofcourse! I've already pressed the bell, not gonna miss😅
@@abhieshinde noiceeeee
Man, your content is great!
Thank you Pedro!!
Thank you Jeff, I´m starting a new freelance job and I´m implementing the team notes template of your video!!! Your friend from Argentina :)
Oh that's awesome! Do you use google tools? Or other platforms?
@@JeffSu Google tools, so clean and useful. I'm trying to jump into Notion but I'm not doing so well.
@@LorenaRinaldini I felt the same at first too!
Great Ideas and well presented. Suggestion/Tip: Create a tab or page for an empty meeting template. Copy THAT instead of the last notes and you wont have to delete those last updates.
That's a GREAT idea, thanks for sharing!!!
Real world practical genius!
Thank you 😁
Thank you for this, Jeff!
You're welcome Vonne!
So much good ideas here, and in your other videos as well. After seeing this I instantly copied the notes part from «meeting notes for self» into Notion - and finally I have a way of taking structured notes from meetings! Thanks man
Nice! Hope it helps you my friend 😁
The spreadsheet idea is a brilliant for ongoing/repetitive meetings or for a planning committee where there's continuity and a need for accountability to get tasks completed. Thanks!
No problem 😁
genius. loving all your tips and tricks 👍
Thanks Juan!! 😁
This is so good! Makes so much sense! Quick and succinct. Mahalo!
Thank you Cynthia 😁
You nailed it, very spot on.
Thank you Shuai!!
One of the first
Big fan bro, greetings from Peru
Yes you are Jesus! Thanks for letting me know!! Stay safe in Peru!
Hi Jeff, I like the way you organise your notes for meeting. Especially the first notes for ownself, i personally had a similar template but using writing. As for the templates for meeting with a single team or multiple teams, I find it hard to type fast enough due to the nature of working in MS excel/Goggle sheets rather than just scribbing everything in MS word/Goggle Docs.
Thank you for sharing Zhenrong! Yes I feel your pain 😅
I think watching ur videos is my new daily routine...
Seems like a pretty dang good daily routine 😉
@@JeffSu haha, kind of miss ur vlog btw
@@meiyunchen197 Haven't had the time 😭
Thank you so much for this video!
You're very welcome Aaron 😁
YT recommended, worth it and subscribed!
Thank you my friend!!
Very helpful video i really enjoy it. The content in this video is very nice and helpful for many of them and the video is very nice it didn't bore any of the area truly engaging. The most favorite thing i found in this video has the content of the video and communication style. Finally thank you for the template and that really helped me because i used this template for my personal work an i got much appreciation from my team and my client and once again thank you for the wonderful video i really enjoy it and we are expecting more related to this type of video.
What a lovely comment, thank you so much my friend 😁
thank you very much, I learned management according to your template sir. :)
That's awesome to hear Akbar!!
Hey Jeff, big fan of your content. Keep up the good work, can you please create video on how to become a product marketer + pros and cons. Would be very helpful thank you
Thanks Rawish!! And thanks for the feedback!
When do you delete or archive the meeting notes below the three categories? I can imagine they'll start to pile up after a while?
It's been 3 years and yes it's been piling up but the files don't slow down so I'm not too worried. If I do then I'll create a new spreadsheet for each year (e.g. 2022, 2023, etc.)
Thank you so much .
You're very welcome Billy!! 😁
One scenario not covered: recurring team meetings, usually with eng, working on the same set of projects over a period of time (quarterly). Sheets like you have works well, but instead of copy/paste vertically, there is a new column for each week to give updates on a given project.
Hi Ryan - That's a great point! I rarely work with Eng so I guess I missed that one 😅. To clarify: Do you mean like 1 new column per new recurring team meeting? But different rows?
Thanks for teaching me something new!
Super super helpful thank you, I did find some note taking apps like notion to be excessive and overkill sometimes.
Thanks for the comment Min!! Although to be honest I love Notion as well 😂
I really enjoy your contents. Thank you so much.
You're very welcome my friend 😁
thank you! 💙
No problem!
Thank you!!!! You're awesome!!
You're very welcome 😁😁
Love your videos, thanks for your amazing content
You're very welcome Elfrid 😁
Awesome content! Very hand on a corporate setting
Haha yes! Thank you Josh! Thought I'd share some of my nerdy learnings from the corporate life 😁
Thank you so much for the useful video!
You're very welcome my friend 😁
Good tips, liked seeing how your team stays organized. Any thoughts on a script or macro to add a new set of boilerplate cells in the Sheets example instead of having to do it manually?
I actually don't really use macros or scripts within Sheets 😅 (...yet)!
I’m so glad I found you 😭
Me too 😁
I started a new role at work and this method is SO helpful! Thank you so much. Curious, have you got into digital note-taking?
Doesn't this count as digital note taking 😂
These are great organization tips, but how do you capture the relevant information without missing other important info? I have trouble with summarizing one point and missing other key information in the process. I've resorted to transcribing the entire call and summarizing afterwards, however that's incredibly taxing over the course of an entire day of meetings and makes it much harder when I'm the one running the meeting too. I'm told this is just the life of an IT auditor, but I refuse to accept that.
I'll be honest David, I don't have a good answer for you. I've always gotten away with jotting down the main points without needing to transcribe an entire meeting or call...but then again I've never worked as an IT auditor!
Excellent video! I wondered where you are getting the little images like at 2:10 - would really appreciate to know because they look so cool!
Flaticons :)
Similar to what I'm doing. Take bullet points. MAIN points. Implementing the "action" portion from you :)
Awesome! Glad you still got some value even though you already had your own process!
i LOVED the Top secret project links!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Hahahaha glad someone noticed them!
Thank you for this video
You're very very welcome 😁
your content is so good!
Thank you Nhan!!
Love this video and really thoughtful and thorough templates
Happy to hear it! 😁
@@JeffSu I shared your video with a couple of colleagues and we're all planning on implementing this first thing tomorrow morning via Smartsheets. Thank you for making it simple.
@@XFiorentti let me know how it goes!!