Agreed, icons is the way to go here for meeting note-taking. I use a box for things I want to make sure get covered during the meeting, and I check it off after

Agreed, icons is the way to go here for meeting note-taking. I use a box for things I want to make sure get covered during the meeting, and I check it off after I bring it up or someone else does. And I use a triangle next to a box for things I want to follow up with someone privately or ask about off line after the meeting. And the very important star for things I don’t want to forget or that are important. Most people just interrupt because they are afraid they’ll forget and must bring up their very important point right now. I also sometimes make a diagram showing the seating arrangement of everyone in the meeting so I can know who was present and refer to them by name if I’m unfamiliar with them. Another note taking trick I use is to use circled numbers to refer to things elsewhere on this page or other pages. Most important of all is that I never use a notebook with rippable paper; these notebooks are important documents I keep with me forever. Every page gets a page number and the date at the top. I reserve the first page of each notebook for a table of contents. Whenever something happens that I might need to refer to later I put it and its page number in the table of contents. Many table of contents entries end up with many page numbers after them, such as pages with T-shirt ideas, game ideas, and haikus. Because of this system I can say “see #3 on 2016-05-24” and go right to something I noted years ago. I go through about one notebook per year and have them going back a long time.