When I Stopped Taking Notes, I Started Listening

AI notetaking didn't give me better notes. It gave me permission to be present.

4 minute read

I used to pride myself on thorough meeting notes. Every comment documented and every action item captured with owner and deadline. Looking back, I was so busy documenting the conversation that I wasn’t actually in it.

That changed when I started using AI notetaking tools. Not because the notes are better. Because I finally have permission to be present.

The Cost of Split-Attention

For years, I operated in what I’d call “capture everything” mode. Laptop open, cursor blinking, mentally dividing attention between listening and typing. I’d catch the words but sometimes miss the subtext. I’d note the decision but not the hesitation in someone’s voice that suggested they weren’t fully committed. This got easier with remote work as we were already sitting at our computer, so typing felt like less of a distraction.

The problem wasn’t effort. I was working hard. But cognitive research confirms what I’d been experiencing: taking notes during a meeting competes for the same mental resources as actually processing what’s being said. We’re not multitasking; we’re task-switching. And every switch has a cost.

I tried various workarounds over the years. Recording meetings (remember those microcassettes?) to review later that never actually happened. Delegating notes to someone else created awkward dynamics, and just not taking notes left me anxious about missing something important.

 
The anxiety was the tell. I’d built my professional identity around being the person who captured everything. Letting go meant trusting something else to catch what I might miss.

The Shift

About a year ago, I started using Plaud, a credit card-sized AI voice recorder. It sits on the table during meetings or clips to my phone for calls. It records everything and transcribes automatically. The AI then generates summaries with action items already extracted.

The first few meetings felt strange. Hands empty. Nothing to type. My instinct was to reach for the laptop, to do something. Instead, I forced myself to just listen.

However, I started picking up on dynamics I’d been missing. The slight pause before someone agreed to a deadline. Body language shifts when topics changed. I noticed what wasn’t being said as much as what was because I was actually focused on the person, not my notes.

This wasn’t about having better notes afterward. It was about being better during. I found myself asking follow-up questions I never would have thought of while typing. I remembered the emotional tenor of conversations, not just the facts.

 
Full disclosure: Plaud isn’t paying me for this. I’ve tried several AI notetaking tools over the past year. This one works for me because it’s hardware-based (no meeting bot joining calls), the transcription quality with speaker labels has been consistently reliable, and their templating is rock solid.

What I Do With the Freed Capacity

The interesting question isn’t whether AI notetaking works. It’s what you do with the mental space it creates.

For me, that space goes toward presence. Actually watching faces in video calls instead of my keyboard. I notice when someone needs to say something but hasn’t found an opening, and I can create that space for them.

I still review the transcripts and summaries after important meetings. They’re useful for capturing specifics I want to reference later. But they’re a backup now, not the primary artifact of the meeting. The primary artifact is the relationship I built by actually being there.

The Trade-off

This approach isn’t perfect. AI transcription occasionally misses context or attributes a quote to the wrong speaker. For highly sensitive or legal conversations, I’d still do human documentation as we wouldn’t record those calls. And there’s an adjustment period where you have to actively resist the urge to “help” by taking notes anyway.

But for the vast majority of my meetings, the trade-off is clear. Slightly imperfect transcription in exchange for actually participating in my own work conversations? I’ll take that deal every time.

If you’re still taking notes in every meeting, try one week without. If you’re not ready or interested in a hardware solution, there are also a number of AI notetaking tools available for Teams, Zoom, and Slack.

Let the AI capture the words while you capture the meaning. The discomfort of empty hands fades quickly. What replaces it is something I didn’t realize I’d been missing: the freedom to actually be in the room.