Rekindle Respect

Are you guilty of this? During meetings or conversations, are you typing on your phone/tablet/laptop instead of giving the person speaking your full attention? Instead of looking you in the eye, the speaker is forced to stare at the top of your head while you gaze lovingly at a backlit screen, hammering away at a keyboard.

Stop that.

Instead of focusing on taking notes, use the audio recording feature in Evernote to record the speech or meeting. Later, you can review the audio and take all the notes you need in the same Evernote note. Listening to the material twice has the added effect of helping you remember the information presented.

If you absolutely have to take notes during a presentation or meeting, (maybe there’s a Q&A after, and you want to remember which questions to ask,) I recommend the old paper and pen method. It tends to be less distracting to everyone than banging away on a keyboard. Afterwards, you can always add a photo of your handwritten notes to the same note containing the audio file.

Keep in mind, if it’s a meeting, you will probably want to let people know that you’re grabbing the audio so they don’t accidentally say something they shouldn’t. Often, it helps to explain that you’re only recording the interaction so you can pay better attention to them now.