Michael Hyatt, president of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has recently posted an article about note-taking titled Recovering the Lost of Art of Note-Taking. I agree with his premise: taking effective notes is an art. The article contains the following main points about note-taking in meetings:

1) Note-taking enables you to stay engaged.
2) Note-taking provides a mechanism for capturing your ideas, questions, and commitments.
3) Note-taking communicates the right things to the other attendees.

He also adds the following helpful hints for making your notes more effective:

1) Use a journal-formatted notebook.
2) Keep your meeting notes as a running journal.
3) Use symbols so you can quickly scan your notes later.
4) Schedule time to review your notes.

I'm involved in several meetings a week. I find that taking notes during the meetings definitely helps me to stay actively engaged in the conversation taking place. Like Mr. Hyatt, I've found that using pen and paper is the most effective method for me to capture my thoughts before, during and after meetings. I may transfer some of these notes to computer at some point, but I typically keep all of my notes on paper. For me, the additional overhead of maintaining a separate application for notes isn't worth it for the added ease of use that this approach might provide me. I've found this is also true for jotting down ideas and other information not related to my meetings. For this type of stuff, I keep a separate notebook that I'm trying to train myself to keep around at all times so that when an idea strikes me or I need to remember something, I can jot that information down.