As we do research meetings, or sales interviews, we uncover a lot of information. Especially if we're good at the 95-5 Rule - where we listen 95% of the time and talk 5% of the time. The information flows, and sometimes it flows so fast that we can't keep up. It can feel like we are trying to drink from a fire hose.

Yet, a research meeting is only as good as the notes you take. We conduct a lot of meetings, talk to several people and engage in many conversations in a given day. If we don't take good notes, and can't rely on our memories, we stand to lose much of the value of these meetings. We have to get better at taking good thorough notes, while remaining involved and engaged in the meeting.

All of us want to be good thorough note takers. We would also like be fast note takers. As a result, we have each developed our own way of taking notes. We create shorthand words and abbreviations and symbols which work for us.

Another thing we all can do to improve in this skill is this: take five minutes immediately after the research meeting and review our notes. If possible, do this before going into another meeting and taking a whole new set of notes. This is a perfect time to clarify points, add additional information, note pertinent questions and clean up our hand writing so we can read it later. In addition, if we had a teammate in the meeting with us, we should de-brief with them and get their perspective. As we all know, two different people could take away very different things from the same meeting.