Mind Map Recipe: Taking Notes at a Meeting
Do you dread going into the Monday morning meeting knowing that you’ll need to write copious amounts of information in case you miss that important item? Well here’s a mind map recipe so that you will be ready for the meeting and be able to take down all those important points.
Here’s the structure of the mind map:
Title
At the centre of the mind map write the title of the meeting. If the meeting is a weekly project review, use “Project Review”. Maybe it’s a meeting with a client, “Client Meeting”. Try and use keywords if possible.
Meeting Details
As a first level branch create a “Info” or “Details” branch. Then under this create these sub-branches: People, Place, Time. For the people branch add a branch for each person who is attending and write their name. Under the place branch, write the venue of the meeting. Finally under the time, add a branch for the date and/or time of the meeting.
The Agenda
For the rest of your mind map add 1st level branches for each of the items on the meeting agenda. If the meeting has no agenda, then create 4 or 5 empty branches all well spaced out around the title of your mind map. As the meeting changes subject or topic you can use each of these branches for each topic. Lastly create a branch with the keyword “Summary”. If the person chairing the meeting will summarise the main points of the meeting, then you can add these here.
Taking Notes
Finally as the meeting progresses, you can add notes to each branch containing the relevant agenda item. Remember to just record keywords and images where possible. If items on the agenda are related then remember to link these branches on your mind map with a dotted line!
Be Prepared!
It’s a good idea to prepare your mind map if possible before the meeting. Obviously you will know the point of the meeting and it’s location and time to record in the mind map. If you have been notified of the agenda, then add these to your mind map before going in to the meeting. It will mean you start recording points from the meeting straight away.
Related Articles:
- Mind Map Recipe: Next Actions by Project
- Mind Map Recipe: Mind Mapping a Book
- Mind Maps and Projects – Part 2: The Project Charter
- Mind Map Recipe: Next Actions by Context
2 Comments
Stainless Steel Cook on May 30th, 2009
Thanks very much for posting I’m sure I will be able to put some of the points to good use.
John Gray on September 11th, 2008
I remember a few years back Buzan had brough out the Universal Personal Organizer (UPO) but it was rather expensive around the £300.00 mark. Would n’t be great to have mind map templates as inserts into your own personal organizer. I use Mind Manager 6.0 but it can be time consuming and ackward to boot the laptop going into a meeting. But professionally done templates like the ‘meeting’ map you have outlined above would be great. I like to draw and doodle (the inner child in me) and I write quicker with pen than with keyboard.