Keeping clear notes
The rough notes you take at the meeting are for your use, so you can use abbreviations and organise them in any way you like. Don't get too messy or obscure, though, as you need to be able to make sense of them when you come to write things up.
Organising your notes in the following ways can help:
- number each item and give it a heading
- leave a few lines of space between one item and the next, so you have room to add other points if the discussion comes back to it later in the meeting
- underline or highlight decisions and who has agreed to do what
- try dividing the page so you have a narrow column down one side for recording who has agreed to do what
- if you are using a loose-leaf pad, number each page