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How to Take Notes for Work | Note-taking Tutorial for Professionals - YouTube
Channel: Jeff Su
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- There are three main reasons
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the note taking technique you use
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for work needs to be very different
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from the way you take notes for personal or academic use.
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Number one, often the company you work for has limitations
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on what apps you can use for note-taking purposes.
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If you're working at Microsoft, you're probably
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not gonna be able to use Notion no matter
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how many nice features it has.
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Number two, you're usually under a lot
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of time pressure to take accurate notes in one go.
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So it's not like you can ask your colleagues,
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clients, to slow down
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or repeat everything they just said after the meeting.
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And finally in today's interconnected world,
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the nature of note-taking is now inherently collaborative.
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The notes you take have to be easily shareable
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so that others can provide feedback as quickly as possible.
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In this video, I shared the note-taking technique
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I developed specifically for work
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over the past seven years, first as a management consultant.
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And now as a product marketer at a large tech company.
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Then share templates and examples you can use right away.
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Let's get started.
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Hi friends, welcome back to the channel.
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If you're new here, my name is Jeff.
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And as a product marketer, I work with a multitude
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of external clients and internal teams on a daily basis.
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Project management is an essential part of my job
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of which effective note-taking is a core component.
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Just think about the ideal scenario
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at the end of a business meeting, or any team project.
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Every single attendee should understand the main takeaways
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and more importantly
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the specific action items they need to take as a next step.
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With this premise in mind,
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the most effective note-taking techniques
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for professionals should always be action-oriented
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because that's how we drive the project forward.
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That's how work gets done.
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While many YouTube videos do a phenomenal job
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at breaking down note-taking techniques
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for personal use or for school,
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that's more geared towards capturing
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and resurfacing information as opposed
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to summarizing key takeaways and action items.
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At work I currently use
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three different note-taking templates based
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on the specific situation that I'm in.
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First, meeting notes for myself.
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Second, team meeting notes where only one team is involved.
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And third, cross-functional team meetings where
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there are multiple teams present.
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As you'll soon see,
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I use different templates because the dynamics
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of those three situations are inherently different.
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And although I use Google Docs and Google Sheets,
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you can adapt my note-taking technique
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to really any application used for capturing text,
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starting with a notes template
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that is very creatively named "Notes For Self."
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This is probably the default note-taking setup
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we are most familiar with, and it does work very well
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when we ourselves are the primary audience.
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Diving right in.
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I split this first page into three different sections.
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The first part "Key Links."
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This is where a hyperlink
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to folders and documents I'm currently working on.
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And this part should be updated
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as new projects are launched
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and completed ones are archived.
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This next section
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I like to call it Top-of-mind because I'm usually working
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on four to five different workstreams at once
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and this allows me to prioritize my action items
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in the short to mid-term.
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I particularly like the outstanding questions prompt here
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because when I think about next steps
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I realize often there are things I'm to figure out
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before I can take that next step.
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So I note down those questions here
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and this last part is just a notes template.
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I copy and paste
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every time I start taking a new note.
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Oh, and pro tip.
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If you see the numbering is a little weird here
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you can actually just right click,
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restart numbering, press okay.
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And everything should be fixed.
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Onto actually how I take the notes.
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And in this fun
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but unfortunately, fictional example
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I'm having a meeting with Satya on Q3 planning.
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Before the meeting even takes place,
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I make sure to have the date, the topic,
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and the person I'm meeting with all typed out beforehand.
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I would actually list also the objective of this meeting.
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No matter how obvious it may be
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to make sure I don't let the conversation go off topic.
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I might even include some questions here that I want to ask
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in the meeting as prompts to myself.
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And then during the meeting, I would simply type
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out all the notes in a simple bullet point format.
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After the meeting, I would usually spend five
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to 10 minutes to summarize my notes
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in the Key Takeaway section here.
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So I can quickly review the highlights
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if I need to down the line.
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And usually I would send the key takeaways
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in a follow-up email to whoever I was meeting with.
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Just so we're all on the same page.
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As you can see nothing revolutionary here,
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but it doesn't have to be.
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As long as the main user
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of this note-taking template is ourselves.
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It would work in a variety of different situations.
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If I were shadowing a sales call, if I were being briefed
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by an external agency on upcoming campaign launch,
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if I were having a coffee chat
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with a manager from another team,
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if I were thinking about switching teams,
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which I would never do that.
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If you're enjoying this video so far
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please let me know by tapping that like button
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and let me know in the comments
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if this is similar to what you're already doing at work.
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Now this next team meeting notes template
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where only one team is involved is
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where it starts to get really interesting.
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As you can see, I'm using Google Sheets instead of Docs.
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And there are very good reasons for this change.
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Number one, since there are now multiple contributors
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to the meeting notes,
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the formatting of the app needs to allow for this.
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For example, for this May 3rd meeting,
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Tim wants to debrief everyone
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on Apple's successful spring loaded event.
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And Warren wants to share his investment strategy.
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Now because these two are on different rows.
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It's very clear to us
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that these are two separate topics.
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Who is gonna share what,
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the estimated time they're gonna take,
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and any links to external documents or websites
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that they want other people to reference beforehand.
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Number two, as these sharings are taking place
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it's best practice to have one person be responsible
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for taking notes each meeting.
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And I usually write that person's name
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to the left-hand side here.
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For the team that I'm in, we have a rotational setup.
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So we have a different person taking notes each week.
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Yes, it's a little awkward to take notes
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all one cell here.
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But I think it's worth it because the presenters
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should have the main takeaways prepared beforehand,
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making the note-taking a little bit easier.
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And the action items are gonna be super clear
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because they're highlighted in a completely separate column.
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So how do you actually use this template?
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Let's say this week is over
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and someone has a topic to discuss next week.
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Well, they'll first just highlight the header row
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and the row right below it.
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Press command C to copy.
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With the top empty row highlighted, command option plus,
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a couple of times to add a few empty rows
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and command V to paste the two rows
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with the exact same formatting.
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So it looks clean and consistent.
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I can simply delete the content now.
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Change a date to next week
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and add the person whose turn it is to take notes.
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Let's say it's Tim, the agenda is,
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I don't know, Tesla and Apple.
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Apple hybrid car discussion.
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This is clearly a joke.
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Please don't sue me.
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The owner is me because it's my topic.
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The time needed, 15 minutes.
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And let's say someone wants to add a topic below mine.
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Very simple, highlight an empty row below mine.
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They would just press command option plus
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to add another row.
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If you see the formatting's a little weird here,
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no problem.
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You can simply with this highlighted across the board
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go down one, command D to paste all the formatting
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down one row and then just simply delete the content.
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Now the formatting should be fine.
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And no, for the last time
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I don't know why people keep saying this.
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I'm totally not a control freak.
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Moving on to the notes template
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for meetings with multiple teams.
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And again, the layout
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and setup is gonna be slightly different.
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So every Monday, the product marketing team
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which is the team that I'm on
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would have meetings with these three different teams,
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product, sales and specialists, separately
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because there's a lot of content to cover. At the same time,
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there's a lot of synergy among the four teams, right?
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That's why it's best to let each team see what's going on
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with the other teams when we're taking the notes.
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And that's why we have three teams worth
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of notes on the same tab.
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Operationally, the POCs from each team
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would be responsible for inputting the agenda items
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before the meetings
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and marketing would be responsible for taking down the notes
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and summarizing action items because we are the ones calling
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for and leading these meetings.
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If you wanted to add a new section for next week
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it would be similar to the process before, simply add a bunch
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of empty rows up here, copy and paste it over
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delete any unnecessary rows, update the date.
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And yes, it can be a little annoying to have to, you know,
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empty and delete the content inside these cells.
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But again, in my personal opinion
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this trade-off is definitely worth having all the
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cross-functional team meeting notes in one tab.
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All three these templates are linked down
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in the description below
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but I do hope the main takeaway
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for you is the thought process
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and rationale that went into this note-taking technique.
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It's not perfect, but I can easily see this working
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for OneNote, Evernote, Notion, and many other apps.
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Let me know in the comments, if you end up using this method
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for taking notes at work.
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And check out this playlist over here
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for more productivity tips and tricks.
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See you on the next video.
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And in the meantime, have a great one.
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