Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0394: How to take minimal notes to stay focused in meetings

Episode Date: September 10, 2015

John asks about note-taking in meetings. Especially when topics change frequently and it’s hard to determine what will or won’t be relevant, is there a simple note-taking system that will permit him to stay on track and remember everything he needs to know in the discussion? What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. […]

Master of Memory 394. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. John submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. John says, I'm hoping you have any advice for remembering information in work meetings. I'm an IT professional and often am in meetings with various teams. Information is discussed on areas that don't involve me, so I find myself tuning out.

I then get asked a question and I'm not paying attention. It would be great to remember key information and at least record it to paper after the meeting. I think that this would also help me stay focused throughout the entire meeting. By the way, what was the name of the music at the end of your podcasts? So, John, the music, both at the beginning and at the end of the podcasts, is the second movement of Ravel's string quartet in F major, and it's one of my favorite pieces of music, and that's why I've used it in the podcast.

I just like to brand it based on my personality and the type of stuff that's interesting to me. So again, that's the string quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel, R-A-V-E-L, and you'll want to look up the second movement. It's pretty fantastic. To get to your memory-based question, so it seems to me that this all comes down to a good use of notes. If you're getting distracted during your meetings, then you want to be able to find a way to get back to the main topic at hand and particularly to the things that you're going to be asked about and actually need to remember and not get distracted from those. Here's just an idea, something that I'm thinking of. Make minimal notes using actually a paper timeline. So you could take a piece of, you know, 8x11 paper, use it in portrait mode or vertical, so you have it taller than it is wide, and then write a line down the center. And that line down the center is what you could consider to be the main subject

or the main set of information that is relevant to you. Then as the meeting progresses, you can go down the paper and use arrows that visually move between subjects as time goes by. So they may move from the main subject to something else, and then you could, as the subject goes back around to the main subject, you can point the arrows back. You may make additional small notes around there to note what those other subjects are that were moved to and maybe put little pieces of information on your notes. But roughly what it's generally doing is you just have the main subject down the middle and you're showing as the conversation goes away from and back to that subject.

And everything else is just sort of the information that branches off of that. Now, something interesting you might do if you're not actually talking, but you do want to stay on track and you do want to keep the main subject that's relevant to you in mind, you might actually pretend in your head to be redirecting the conversation. So someone says something, you might think of what you would actually do yourself to have what they said logically lead back to the main subject. There are techniques for doing that. It's something that is a skill that's attainable. Although, you know, I'm talking about real conversation, you're doing this in your head. At the conversation toolbox stuff at masterofmemory.com we'll have more information about that sort of thing it's an it's a topic that excites me and it's a skill

that transfers to this because you can think about you know you're thinking actively as if you're saying something yourself about the way that the topic that is not really relevant to what you're talking about can relate back to what you think is more important for you to know. So that's my suggestion, John, just thinking about everything as it relates to the subjects that you're most likely to be asked about and what are supposed to be discussed in the meeting and just trying to relate everything back to that. That'll keep you the most active, that'll help you listen to everything that's being said, but always from the perspective of what's most important. For anyone listening, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours.

Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon.