Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1v6mivd/lpt_if_you_spend_more_time_writing_up_your/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/lifeprotips by /u/IntelligentHome4267 on 2026-07-25 22:53:57+00:00.

Original Title: LPT: If you spend more time writing up your meeting notes than the meeting itself, stop taking notes during the call and record it instead. The real work happens in the first 10 minutes after the meeting ends, not during.

I work from home managing multiple clients. I tried to take detailed notes on every call, but I quickly learned that doing so caused me to miss half the conversation. I would then spend so much time after trying to reorganize my notes and figure out what I meant.

I was doing too much and not being able to be present for the meeting.

Now I record every client call (with permission, obviously), and I spend the first 10 minutes after the call doing three things:

1. Write down the one decision that was actually made
2. Write down who is doing what by when
3. Draft the follow-up email while the conversation is still fresh in my head

I then sometimes will go back in the recording to ensure I got my notes down correctly.

My post-meeting admin work went from 45 minutes to 10 minutes by doing this. That is 35 minutes per call. If you have three calls a day, you just got back almost two hours.

The thing that was saving me from forgetting the meeting was actually stealing my entire afternoon.