[LoudogUno]

Going against what seems to be the prevailing thought in this thread. Here's why and how I take notes primarily on a laptop.

When the lecture, presentation or meeting starts a have a macro that creates a new Evernote note prepended with the date and starts recording into QuickTime. Throughout the exchange, I am typing up quick and dirty first draft notes using a macro to screenshot the portion of the QuickTime window displaying the time elapsed. I also employ symbols/emojis to flag points in the notes that are important‼️, should be returned to and reviewed later , are confusing, raise a question ect... Whenever there is downtime (e.g. interruption or lull in the presentation) I work my way back and start improving the notes: Organizing them into a hierarchy with headings, indentation and boldation. Also, I Hyperlink useful, relevant or referenced URLs.

At the bottom of the document I have a separated section called TAKEAWAY containing a bulleted list of questions to ask, things to follow up on, and key points. I can always ⌘↓ > ↩ to add an item line to this section.

At the end of the exchange, I check my TAKEWAY section and clarify any questions. I stop recording and add the audio file to the top of the document. This leaves me with a reference document I can revisit, clean up, and reference later.

The process of making the note visually appealing and easy to read by cleaning up, formatting, and adding hyperlinks accomplishes a lot of the internalization handwriting does because it forces you to try to convey the kernel of the information being consumed in as well few formatted, organized words as possible.

Furthermore, I'm the type that really values immediately looking up unfamiliar referenced concepts/ideas so I don't misunderstand what/why something is said. As for diagrams, they can usually be incorporated by adding slides of the presentation, taking a picture of the whiteboard at the end, or just googling whatever the diagram was.

With the wonderful world of macros and automation I can change color, size, formatting, add lists; add hyperlinks, multi-media images, timestamps ect... and keep everything in an easy to read, search and share document.

Most importantly my handwriting is bogus. I really couldn't do it any other way.

[leksak]

Nice workflow, and goes back to this comment somewhat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20271383 However, I'm not sure about the legality of recording audio without informing everyone in the room. In my country that would be illegal as some people have protected identities.

[LoudogUno]

I think I understand your concern about the [local] legality of “recording audio”... if everybody would cease bringing (or otherwise sufficiently disable) _recording devices_ to/in public spaces.

I don’t think the average person understands > cares > is negatively impacted by that concern.

Any knowledge or experiences?

[leksak]

I suppose it's a lot like jay walking. Some people will care enough to observe the law and others will not. In reality, the problem only arises if you record something (say a lecture) and share it publicly and it exposes an individual whose identity is otherwise protected.

My experience has been, as someone that observes the law, I've been denied the opportunity to audio-record a lecture. In this instance, the person in question did not object but the professor did - stating that there was an individual that could be affected. Granted, it doesn't really make a difference if I use it for my own personal use but since everything is hosted in the cloud these days...