> Take notes: Taking notes can help you remember important points and reduce cognitive load.
I often do this in online meetings, but have two not-entirely-solved problems with it:
1. People might think I'm not paying attention when I am, especially in 2-person meetings. (They might hear the typing, and my gaze might shift at times. When I do need a sec to type an action item or something that takes longer than a pause in a 2-person meeting, I can say that. People also don't know that I'm only typing notes for the meeting, not, say, processing other things, until they know me well enough to know that I'd say if I had to respond to an urgent Slack message or something.)
2. People don't always want everything recorded/documented. Say, a concern about personnel, or how some dependency is going, morale, or a personal challenge affecting someone's work. In an in-person meeting, if I've been taking notes and want to signal that something is more off-the-record, I could put down my pen, take hands off the keyboard, or close notepad portfolio. In videoconf, when they can't see my typing hands, there aren't as good subtle signals, and I might have to verbalize somehow that I'm not taking notes.
Hey regarding the first “problem” I’m the exact same.
If it’s someone new to me who doesn’t know me I’ll often slip it into conversation that I’m taking notes;
“So you’re saying that the xyz project is going to need abc? Ok cool, I’m just gonna add that to my notes here real quick” - I’ll do that early on a call.
Or I’ll read back the important points I took in a real obvious way.
I think I do this because it bothers the shit out of me if someone is obviously typing away on slack or whatever and not properly engaging in the meeting and I don’t wanna be seen as that guy
I often do this in online meetings, but have two not-entirely-solved problems with it:
1. People might think I'm not paying attention when I am, especially in 2-person meetings. (They might hear the typing, and my gaze might shift at times. When I do need a sec to type an action item or something that takes longer than a pause in a 2-person meeting, I can say that. People also don't know that I'm only typing notes for the meeting, not, say, processing other things, until they know me well enough to know that I'd say if I had to respond to an urgent Slack message or something.)
2. People don't always want everything recorded/documented. Say, a concern about personnel, or how some dependency is going, morale, or a personal challenge affecting someone's work. In an in-person meeting, if I've been taking notes and want to signal that something is more off-the-record, I could put down my pen, take hands off the keyboard, or close notepad portfolio. In videoconf, when they can't see my typing hands, there aren't as good subtle signals, and I might have to verbalize somehow that I'm not taking notes.