As we go through school, college and graduate school, most of us learn to take notes. It could be when the teacher or professor is teaching us, or when we are preparing for an exam or just studying. However, as we transition into a professional working career - be it a job or entrepreneurship, most of either lose touch with this important skill or just plain stop. 

I was wondering WHY? Perhaps, we think we can remember everything. Perhaps, we don't think something profound is being said in meetings. Perhaps, we think we can find anything on the internet merely by searching. Or, maybe we become just plain lazy.

Regardless, I want to try and remake the case for taking great notes in a professional setting.  Here are 5 reasons:

1. We are rarely listening.
In a meeting or a conversation, most of us are conditioned to want to speak, respond, debate or discuss. As you take notes, your brain has to paraphrase what you are hearing into something meaningful. That improves understanding and retention. 

Taking notes can help you remember & prioritise easily.

2. It is hard to remember who-said-what-when.
No matter how great your brain is at recall, it is being bombarded with a gazillion messages, tweets, emails, articles (like this one!). Simple notes will help you improve not factual recall but also the CONTEXT in which what was said and by whom.

3. You may be missing what appear to be "small" insights but could be quite profound in the impact they could have. As the Butterfly effect in Chaos theory suggests, even small causes, can have large effects. 

4. As you reflect on your notes later, your brain synapses might discover hitherto unknown relationships between different sets of notes.
As Matt Ridley had argued in his popular TED talk "When Ideas Have Sex", human progress has been dependent on not just individual ideas but the mating of different ideas.

5. Woody Allen has famously said a lot of success is just showing up. That's only part of the story.

Success is not just about showing up; you have to FOLLOW up!

Really, success is about following up and getting things done. If you ask anyone who's good at sales, they will tell you the secret of selling is listening and then following up systematically. Taking good notes is about recording what action items have to be done, by whom and by what date.

Chose whatever mechanism works for you - whether its the good old pen and paper, or Evernote, Google docs, or even your mobile phone. Go right ahead - start taking good quality notes from your next meeting!

As always, pls. do share your thoughts on whether taking notes has worked for you and any tips/tricks you may have for your fellow professionals.

About the Author -

(Amit Somani is a Managing Partner at Prime Venture Partners, an early stage Venture Capital firm based out of Bangalore, India. Prime VP invests in category creating, early stage companies founded by rock star teams. Prior, Amit has held leadership positions at Makemytrip, Google and IBM. He is also deeply engaged with the early stage startup ecosystem in India and actively volunteers with iSpirt, TiE and NASSCOM. He tweets at @amitsomani)

This article was originally published on Linkedin