Don't Lose Anything During a Meeting Or a Training Again

It happens to everybody that you go on a meeting or a training trusting your trusty notepad for taking notes. But maybe you don't know how to take notes well, and maybe your handwriting sucks, or maybe you cannot organize things when the trainer likes to hop between topics. I've been there.

Using a combination of tools and ideas available to virtually everybody you can work around that. The tools presented here are all free and available for Android, Apple & Blackberry devices:

Tools

1. Evernote: This is one of THE best applications for a smartphone. This will be our main platform for modern note taking. Install it on your phone or your tablet, or use it from your PC. It will travel with you wherever you go, whatever device you're using.
2. Any voice recorder ( If you don't have one: Android, iPhone, BlackBerry )
3. Any video recorder ( If you don't have one: Android, iPhone, BlackBerry ) 

A suggested TL/DR mode of operation:

1. Create a Notebook: Let's say you used to have different notepads for everyday work organization, another for your personal to-do list or groceries or whatever, and maybe you're going through a training over a few days, and you want to keep that separate too. We'll go with the training example.
2. Now that we have a notebook called "XYZ Training", create a new note, and name it after the subject being discussed, or maybe if this is vague, "Day 01"
3. Start typing your notes as you would in a notepad.
4. Click on the camera icon. Take photos of diagrams or drawings if needed. They will be attached to this note.
5. Click the video camcorder icon. Record a video if needed, also will be attached to the same note.
6. The same goes with voice recording.

Tips:

1. Record the whole F-ing thing. Your phone -any phone- has the memory for it, and this way you will know you haven't lost anything. You can run a voice recorder in the background on your phone and take the notes at the same time.
2. Don't shy out of shooting photos or video footage if you know it is important.
3. If you have an old fart for a trainer that you think he might not want to be recorded, run a voice recorder and turn off the screen of your phone. Direct the microphone in his direction to get a betterresult. I prefer not telling them I'm recording anyways. Don't forget to test this before the meeting, since different voice recorders might stop recording when you turn off the screen More information on how to make this sound better and cleaner using free tools. However, go through the organization's rules before doing that so that you don't get into trouble. It's your head, not mine.
4. Log on to Evernote from your PC after the whole thing is over. Format the notes you took properly from the PC  for easier readability in the future, when you have forgotten what the meeting was about. The sooner you do that, the clearer the context of the event is in your head (relatively), the better your results will be.

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