[crassus_ed]

>Now the transcript happens in the background, a summary lands in my Obsidian vault automatically, and I can actually be present in the conversation. That’s 20 minutes a day I got back, every day, without thinking about it.

Honest question: Do you actually read any of these notes? I think there is a fundamental flaw with not taking notes. I'm convinced taking notes forces you to properly consider what is being said and you store the information in your brain better that way.

[crazygringo]

I think you misunderstand.

Taking notes during meetings isn't to improve understanding, or to "read" afterwards.

They're a record of what was discussed and decided, with any important facts that came up. They're a reference for when you can't remember, two weeks later, if the decision was A and B but not C, or A and C but not B.

Or when someone else delivers the wrong thing because they claim that's what the meeting decided on, and you can go back and find the notes that say otherwise.

I probably only need to find something in meeting notes later once out of every twenty meetings. But those times wind up being so critically important, it's why you take notes in the first place.

[crassus_ed]

Right, so it's for accountability instead. Have you considered generating stories or tasks from the notes in that case?

Still I think it's better to discuss "action points" in that case and give a clear owner to those points. This always helps me to understand who's accountable and what actions actually need follow up.

[crazygringo]

The question is, what artifact records the action points, the owners, who is accountable? And all the necessary associated information?

Notes do. Ideally there is a meeting owner who produces official notes and emails them to everyone, but frequently that never happens. And when it does happen, sometimes they're wrong and you need to correct them.

Which is why you need your own meeting notes. Plus, like I said, there are facts that come up that you want to document as well, that aren't part of the action items, but have value.

[baq]

Back when I was in a big org and in meetings 5-7h basically every day (as an engineer IC) this workflow would have absolutely hit it out of the park.

[oytis]

Yeah, the whole purpose of taking notes is being present in the conversation. Notes themselves are a nice byproduct.

[ayhanfuat]

> I'm convinced taking notes forces you to properly consider what is being said and you store the information in your brain better that way.

Yes, this is like listening a guided meditation in 2x speed because it is faster.

[Buttons840]

I'd rather do spaced repetition than Obsidian.

Does anyone know if a plugin for this?

Like, a history buff could just tell the LLM "quiz me on the Taiping Rebellion, who what where when and why."

The LLM then enters this instruction into an API that handles the spaced repetition data and algorithms.

The LLM could pull that API daily and quiz you daily.

Actually knowing all this stuff sounds so much better than having a bunch of notes in a fancy graph.

[treetalker]

You can use an LLM to generate first drafts of flashcards that you import into, and later revise in, a true spaced-repetition system — such as Mochi or Anki.

For learning new material, make your LLM assume a Socratic position. Kagi Assistant has a custom Study model that does this. The key is causing the model to increase your friction (causing learning and memory) instead of decreasing it.

[Buttons840]

I can't use Anki on a walk or while making dinner.

[Ancapistani]

I don’t read the notes generated by AI during meetings - but that’s not their purpose, either. The agent reads the notes, and uses that context to be better at what I’m asking it to do.

It also lets me ask questions like “When did we decide to change the login modal?” and get an accurate response.

[anticorporate]

I think it depends. Honestly, for me, the alternative to automated notes from meetings is that I don't take notes. I know, I should, but I don't. I've tried numerous times to instill the habit unsuccessfully.

Where the value for me comes from is sending them out immediately after the meeting, not archiving them in a vault I never look at. "Here's the summary of what we discussed, and the distilled action items we each agreed to take."

Like the author, I've gone out of my way to avoid hosting my personal stuff with Big Tech providers, but when it comes to work, I give in to whatever we use, because I just don't have capacity to also be IT support for internal technology. It's still uncomfortable, but I have to be honest about what I have time for.