Guides
Practical, sourced guides to meeting notes, templates, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and AI note takers. Every fact is dated and linked; when something changes, we update the page.
Meeting notes
All Meeting notes guides →How to take meeting notes: a simple method that works
Good notes are not a transcript. They are the few lines someone needs a week later: what was decided, who owns what, and what is still open.
7 min read →Meeting notes · GuideNote-taking methods compared: Cornell, outline, mapping, charting and sentence
There is no single best way to take notes. There is a best way for the kind of conversation you are in.
8 min read →Meeting notes · GuideMeeting minutes vs meeting notes: what to write, and who it's for
Notes help the people who were there. Minutes are the official record for everyone who wasn't, sometimes with legal weight.
6 min read →Meeting notes · GuideHow to write action items people actually finish
Most actions die because they were never really actions. Here is how to write ones that survive the week.
5 min read →Meeting notes · GuideHow to take notes on a call without missing the conversation
Typing and listening compete for the same attention. A few habits let you keep both.
5 min read →Meeting notes · GuideNote-taking abbreviations and symbols that save time in meetings
You don't need formal shorthand. Twenty symbols and a few rules will double how much you can catch.
5 min read →Meeting notes · GuideHow to take interview notes that are fair and useful
Interview notes decide careers. Write evidence, not impressions, and write it before the debrief.
5 min read →Templates
All Templates guides →Meeting notes templates: six formats you can copy
One template rarely fits every meeting. Here are six, each kept short enough that people will actually use it.
6 min read →Templates · TemplateHow to write a meeting summary (with a template)
A meeting summary is the five lines someone reads instead of attending. Here's how to write them.
5 min read →Templates · TemplateMeeting agenda template: how to plan a meeting people don't dread
Good notes start before the meeting. An agenda tells everyone, including the note-taker, what to listen for.
5 min read →Templates · TemplateSales and discovery call notes: a template that helps you close
The best sales notes record the customer's words, not your pitch. Here's what to capture.
5 min read →Templates · GuideThe follow-up email, written well: a structure and a template
The follow-up is the only part of a meeting that everyone reads twice. Four parts, under 150 words, sent the same day.
5 min read →AI note takers
All AI note takers guides →AI note takers for Zoom, Google Meet and Teams: built-in, bot or on-device?
There are three ways an AI can take notes in your calls. They differ in who can see it, which meetings it works in, and where your audio goes.
6 min read →AI note takers · GuideWhat is an AI note taker, and how does it work?
Four steps sit behind every AI meeting note: capture, transcription, speaker labelling and summarising. Each one can go wrong in its own way.
6 min read →AI note takers · GuideBot vs bot-free AI note takers: how they differ
The biggest design choice in AI note-taking isn't the AI. It's how the audio gets in.
6 min read →AI note takers · ExplainerWhat is Granola? How the AI notepad for meetings works
Granola popularised the bot-free meeting notepad. Here's how it works, explained plainly and with sources.
6 min read →AI note takers · ExplainerWhat is Wispr Flow Notetaker? The dictation app's move into meetings
Wispr Flow built its name on dictation. In August 2026 it added meeting notes. Here's what launched, with sources.
5 min read →AI note takers · GuideHow accurate are AI meeting notes? Where they go wrong and how to check
AI notes are usually right about the gist. The errors that matter hide in the details.
5 min read →AI note takers · GuideAre AI note takers safe? Ten privacy questions to ask before you use one
Meetings hold your most sensitive conversations. Ten questions to ask any AI note taker before you let it listen.
6 min read →AI note takers · GuideAI meeting assistant vs AI note taker vs transcription: what's the difference?
Three labels, often used interchangeably. They describe different jobs.
4 min read →How to take notes in Zoom meetings (manual and AI options)
Zoom gives you four ways to capture a meeting. Which ones you can use depends on your plan and on settings you have to switch on before you hit record.
7 min read →Zoom · GuideHow to get a transcript of a Zoom meeting
The setting that matters has to be on before you press record. Here's the short version, and what to do if it wasn't.
5 min read →Google Meet
All Google Meet guides →Microsoft Teams
All Microsoft Teams guides →Recording and consent
All Recording and consent guides →How to record a meeting on Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams
Recording is one click on every platform, if your plan and your admin allow it. Asking first is the part people skip.
6 min read →Recording and consent · LawRecording conversations: the consent basics, and a script that works
Whether you may record depends on where everyone is, not just where you are. The simple habit that covers most of it takes one sentence.
8 min read →Recording and consent · LawIs it legal to record a meeting in India? What the law says in 2026
India has no single law that says when you may record a conversation. Instead there is a constitutional right to privacy, a body of evidence law, and a data protection regime that becomes fully enforceable in May 2027.
9 min read →Research and essays
All Research and essays guides →Handwriting vs typing notes: what the research actually says
A 2014 study made 'the pen is mightier than the keyboard' famous. Later replications tell a quieter story.
6 min read →Research and essays · EssayWhy people speak differently when something is listening
On candour, recorders in the room, and the conversation that starts after someone says "can we turn that off?"
7 min read →Research and essays · ResearchThe hidden tax of forgetting: an open study of what meetings lose
Everyone agrees meetings lose information. Almost nobody has measured what, how much, or what it costs. We are running an open study and publishing the method before the results.
6 min read →