Most of us take notes for a version of ourselves who remembers the meeting. That person doesn’t exist. Six weeks later you’ll read “chase Dan re: pricing” and have no idea which Dan, which pricing, or why it mattered.
The fix is to write notes that work when you’ve forgotten everything, which happens to be exactly the same thing as notes an AI can use later. Both need the context spelled out, because neither of you was in the room.
Write the why, not just the what
“Moved launch to March” is a fact. “Moved launch to March because the finance team can’t sign off before year end, and Ravi was nervous about the support cover” is a note you can reason with later.
It’s one extra sentence, and it means that in three months you can paste the note in and ask a genuinely hard question.
Here are my notes from the last four months on this project. What did we decide, in what order, and which reasons no longer apply now that finance has signed off? List the decisions worth revisiting.
You can’t ask that of a list of bullet points with no reasons attached.
Use full names and plain nouns
Your shorthand betrays you. “DH re: the thing from Tuesday” is unreadable to your future self and useless to any tool. Write “Dana Hughes, the supplier contract renewal”. Yes, it’s slower. It’s about four seconds slower.
Same for acronyms. Expand them the first time in every note. You know what OPR means today, and you won’t in September.
Date everything and keep it in one place
One long running document per project, newest at the top, each entry starting with the date. That’s it. No tagging system, no linking, no clever hierarchy.
The reason is practical: one file can be pasted into a chat in three seconds. Fifty scattered notes cannot, and so they never are.
Leave yourself a handover note
Every few weeks, write the paragraph you’d write if you were going on leave tomorrow. Where things stand, what’s next, who’s waiting on what, what you’re worried about.
Read my running notes for this project and draft the handover paragraph I’d give a colleague if I went on leave tomorrow. Current state, next actions with owners, and the two risks I seem most worried about based on what I keep mentioning.
That last part is unnervingly good. The thing you mention three times in passing is usually the thing you should have escalated a fortnight ago.
Write for the person who has to explain it
One more habit, and it applies at home too. When you finish something fiddly, like fixing the boiler timer, sorting a tax form, or the exact way you got the visa application through, write down the steps while it’s fresh. Not for you. For the you who has to do it again in eighteen months.
Those notes are the ones I reach for most, and they work brilliantly when you’re stuck, because you can paste them in and ask what’s changed since.
What not to write down
Keep passwords, card numbers and medical details out of your running notes, especially if you plan to paste them into a chat. A note that says “renewal needs the reference from the letter in the drawer” does the job without putting anything sensitive in a text file.
None of this needs a new app. It’s the same notes you already take, with the reasons left in and the names spelled out.
What’s the one thing you’ll wish you’d
To make this habit useful, see Prep for a 1:1 and How to turn a messy email thread into a decision.
FAQ
What must every note include?
Who, what decided, what happens next, and by when. Skip clever summaries.
Can AI rewrite my notes for me?
Yes, if you give it the raw scrap. Ask it to fill gaps and flag missing owners.
written down this week?