[linker3000]

I'm 53 and work in IT for a 'funky' learning/media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position.

I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and 'multitask', however a few have started to adopt my method - it's been particularly useful for client meetings where I have been able to later confirm sub-points or asides mentioned by customers - sometimes months later. It's also very easy to drill down through Quarterly reviews and link chains of historic comments 'on the fly' - for example, being able to confirm that so-and-so first mentioned something about a similar technical issue on a different system 12 months ago.

My 'Cornell' style has developed an element of mindmapping on the pages, which makes it easy to track conversations or sections of meetings that break off into side discussions/brainstorming.

The biggest benefit is that the structure of all notes is consistent, so not only can I find things very quickly, but others can interpret them too - this is a particularly powerful way to allow teams to share, compare and understand someone else's notes, even months after the meeting or training took place.

Edit: I also believe it looks very professional in customer meetings when everyone from the same business is taking notes in a similar way, using identical stationery.

I've been working this way since the mid 1990s and find it beats all forms of tech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes

http://lsc.cornell.edu/notes.html

[NeedMoreTea]

I'm also in my 50s, and have been carrying A4 hardback notebooks around since 80s or 90s, that I use similarly. I add a margin, leave 5 pages at the front for indexing, and I've adopted a few highlighting habits to cross reference and link for easy reference later.

It's my definitive memory, and has been worth it to answer the months later questions of why we did or didn't include some feature, or designed something as we did. It's also where I think by pencil, so there's lots of plans, hierarchies, thoughts too. Those rough scribbles go at the back.

The few times I've tried to improve on this either by tech or organisers like filofax etc, it's quickly proved much worse or slower. The old Psion 5 got closest! Simply happy to stay old world now. It works, it's quick, and never needs charging.

[linker3000]

Yep, I think it's good to note that like me you have tried tech options, but not found them to bring anything useful to the party.

It's too easy to look at us old farts and draw the conclusion that we're just too stuck in our ways and unable to cope with this new-fangled stuff, but I've spent periods (maybe perhaps a few months at a time) taking notes in other ways to see if I can 'evolve' - off the top of my head I've tried: Mind mapping meetings (on paper and electronically), netbooks (I still have a Samsung NC10 running Mint which is great as a portable terminal when a physical keyboard is a 'must' and the company HP laptop or home T420 is just too bulky for the situation), tablets and phones with styluses. (I used to have a Note 1 phone and still use a Galaxy Note 10.1 daily for research at home).

Some things 'just work'.

[NeedMoreTea]

Yeah, it hasn't been for lack of trying. Laptop I thought too intrusive, though the earliest versions (before the weather widgets and web additions) of Google Desktop search showed lots of promise for retrieval, the note taking itself just took me too much out of the discussion, and too much into faffing about with a laptop. iPad is brilliant for home surfing but useless as meeting tablet. Maybe smart paper and AI indexing one day...

Then there's the software. Evernote was something a previous boss swore by - until some change he really couldn't get on with forced him to migrate, with much muttering, everything to something else. Evernote, wikis and most of the rest are best if you do proper categorisation of notes and indexing. Indexing always feels must be a second pass after, as categories and choices from before never quite do it. So it's always ended up slower than simply writing in an index at the front at the end of the day or week.

Six months later I often don't know quite what I'm searching, haven't a clue of keywords needed, but it's more archaeological, going back through layers of time, then re-following choices and paths. Grab a handful of pages that is about six months... Skim, find the follow-up. Oh, yeah this, that, who and why. Job done.

[2rsf]

> It's also very easy to drill down through Quarterly reviews and link chains of historic comments 'on the fly'

I have never heard about Cornell Notes, it seems like the missing piece I was looking for to convince myself to move back to pen and paper since I too feel that handwriting makes you remember and understand better.

But there are two things I am missing over OneNote

- Search capabilities, how do you drill down and find the one small items you don't exactly remember which category it belongs to ?

- Non language items like URLs, code snippets or command line parameters- in one note I simply copy paste them, how do you write them ?

[linker3000]

The left column is the notes/subject/item/named person index. If a 3 hr meeting has 12 pages (double sided), I can probably pick up the notes and check all columns in about 10 seconds.

If a URL is mentioned, it's likely either because someone knows it (make a note to ask them for it), it's in their notes (ask for them), or it's been put on a whiteboard (take a photo if needed). Ditto for code, if it's that kind of meeting (and, yes, I do have those kinds of meetings).

[blcArmadillo]

For search capability you could try the method shown here: http://www.highfivehq.com. Basically you mark the edge of a page in the spot that corresponds to an index. You can then find items form a certain category by looking at the edge of the notebook. It's an interesting concept if you don't need a ton of granularity in your ability to search.

[johnchristopher]

> - Non language items like URLs, code snippets or command line parameters- in one note I simply copy paste them, how do you write them ?

Typically I don't write this kind of information down ; I reference them from the original document.

[totallynotcool]

Started a new school again after 12 years and recently learned about this. Just picked it up along with some bullet journalling techniques and so far it's been great.

[foota]

Man, I had a teacher in high school who forced us to take Cornell style notes for everything, it was so irritating at the time. Looks pretty neat now though!

[kendallpark]

Can you explain how you expanded Cornell? I started using Cornell this past year. Curious about the improvements you've made.

[linker3000]

Nothing too major:

The top of the page has headings for: meeting subject, date, room/location (can help jog memory), attendees, 'page x of y' and a 'confidential' tick box so I can keep corporate strategy or personnel discussions separate and secure.

The bottom section is marked 'Notes / Actions' where I highlight things that need follow-up (by me or others) - this is far better that having, say, 12 pages of notes from a 3 hr meeting with a few bits of underlined, ringed or asterisked text somewhere therein. Later I can visually scan the bottom of each page and quickly see all meeting actions - and I will have drawn a manual tick box by all mine so I can mark them off when completed.

[johnchristopher]

Love the Cornell notes. Would you share your template ?

[linker3000]

Sure: https://github.com/linker3000/Cornell

[danielhunt]

I’d like to see this too if you’re willing/happy to share

[Symbiote]

There are plenty of templates online, for example http://paper-prints.com/sheet/cornell_notes_A4 and (customizable) https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/cornelllined/

Searching also led to a few suppliers of pre-printed notebooks or paper with a similar grid.

[linker3000]

Yes, but in the UK they are stupidly expensive - I thought about buying Cornell notebooks for the team (or having company ones made up), but soon changed my mind.

[martin_a]

Did you have a look at the big online printers in the EU area?

I would throw Flyeralarm in the ring (not connected to them), looks like you can get a Wire-O notebook with 50 pages, and cover artwork as you like, for around 3 Euro (at 50 pieces) with prices dropping from there on.

Or what price do you think of?

[linker3000]

Thanks - that's interesting.

I checked Amazon (yeah, OK) and a few commercial printers that specifically mentioned Cornell notebooks.

I may have to revisit this matter.

[linker3000]

No prob: https://github.com/linker3000/Cornell

[C1sc0cat]

I would be even more impressed if you then circulated proper meeting minutes, with all the Action points properly recorded, document named and version controlled etc

I think a lot of people whose roles are client facing would benefit from this even though 90% of them would have no idea of what properly run meetings look like.

[barking]

Capturing into a shared Onenote book using a phone camera would be a simple task and could be a good repository for notes of this type. The notes would be automatically dated and with OCR, searchable.

[linker3000]

Who said that doesn't happen :-).

I'm not always hosting/minuting the meeting so it'll be done by whoever is.

[chapium]

Pen and Paper's killer feature is that, aside from doodling, is distraction free.