FWIW, it's been shown that just the act of taking notes enhances the memory of the person doing it, whether they refer back to the notes at a later time or not.

FWIW, it's been shown that just the act of taking notes enhances the memory of the person doing it, whether they refer back to the notes at a later time or not. As to the value of note taking in general, for devs, I equate it to telling someone to "put that in the ticket, don't verbally instruct what needs to be done". Documenting decisions made, who will do what, etc. can all be valuable and prevent needless discussions later about who's memory is correct about X (i.e. how something is supposed to function). Some people have great memories, but others do not, and even if you think yours is not in need of this kind of assistance, having something to reference back to can be a big help, especially when you can say something like "hmm, that's interesting, in my notes, I wrote down we decided to go with Y, but you are saying Z, when did that change?" I should note that taking notes is a skill like any other, done poorly it can probably have the opposite effect of causing distraction and missing things that are being discussed.