I spent the first decade or so of my career not taking any notes at all. Constantly, I was forgetting little things after meetings, spacing out on information after a week or a month or whatever. Now I keep a notebook on my desk at all times and I write with a pen. I constantly write down what I am doing, what I am working on, what I am thinking, the gist of conversations that I have throughout the day, and more. More information is always better. I find that writing in pen is better than pencil because I am not tempted to try to fix when I spell a word wrong or make some other kind of error, and I find that physically writing things out with a writing utensil is much easier for me to maintain verbal conversations vs typing the notes out with a keyboard.
It seems to me that the notebooks create their own value, and you have to start somewhere to begin seeing the value. Then you will find that value and you will accelerate your usage of note taking.
Notebooks can be a really incredible tool - if someone asks me what happened on the first Tuesday in May, I can flip through my notebooks and figure it out. If I wonder what the heck I was thinking as I was writing a PR, I can check the date of the PR and find my notes. I've never once regretted taking a notes and now I will likely never stop.
I start a new page each new day if I was in the middle of the previous page, and I write the date at the top of each new page. Other than that it’s essentially stream of conscious and that tends to work well for me
* use a spiral-bound notebook and keep my pen tucked in the spiral binding so it never gets lost (I actually use a Pentel 0.9mm clutch pencil, and think I've lost two pencils in 25 years)
* buy my own notebook, different from the standard one everyone else has, so I can find it easily (I've never lost one)
* draw boxes to highlight To Do items or deliverables from others
* every meeting starts with its name and the people present (initials for colleagues, full names for those more distant)
* every few pages, bring forward old To Dos in a list in the top right margin
* start work notes from the front, personal notes made while at work from the back
Honest question: How long have you been maintaining this kind of thing? I tried something this detailed a few times in the past and at most was able to carry this on for about two months. Painfully.
I should also have mentioned the notebook format is A5, not A4/letter. It is small enough to carry everywhere. If I have a few A4 printouts, I normally fold them in half and tuck them inside the front cover. Inside the back cover I always have a few sheets of blank paper, for sketching ideas on with colleagues.
This is the specific notebook I use: https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/office-depot-wirebound-no.... I tried Moleskin etc but they aren't as convenient for carrying my pen, aren't as expandable for carrying extra papers, and are 3 times more expensive.
I've been doing this since my first full-time job, so around 26 years. If you carry it with you everywhere at work, and open it at the start of every meeting, it quickly becomes automatic.
The key I think is only having one place where you write stuff down. That makes it automatically an append-only log :) The rest is optional. I have occasionally tried keeping notes electronically, but was never able to maintain it consistently for more than a few days, and found myself wanting to write different types of notes in different places.
It seems to me that the notebooks create their own value, and you have to start somewhere to begin seeing the value. Then you will find that value and you will accelerate your usage of note taking.
Notebooks can be a really incredible tool - if someone asks me what happened on the first Tuesday in May, I can flip through my notebooks and figure it out. If I wonder what the heck I was thinking as I was writing a PR, I can check the date of the PR and find my notes. I've never once regretted taking a notes and now I will likely never stop.