Show HN: I built a system for active note-taking in regular meetings like 1-1s

This is personal. However, many of the people I had meetings with love this. So, here we go.

Quite a while back, I realized that anything digital, from phones to computers, tends to become or look like very official/non-personal and hence looks bad, especially in 1:1 meetings. I decided to go with pen and paper, in a simple Notebook (A5 or A7 is my choice). I’m do not write anything personal, but the points shared or noted down between us are enough to remind me of any points that I might have noted in my mind.

I’ve carried this habit to many other meetings (non-1:1s too), even when there is a note-taker (AI or otherwise). My meeting notes usually get shared or used as references by other participants.

Even during the meetings, other participant(s) sometimes contribute to my notes. I don’t hate digital mediums; in fact, I have used Freeform on an iPad just like I use my Notebook for meeting notes.

The interesting part is that I learnt to draw like Dan Roam[1] quite a while back. So, my notes contain texts with a lot of arrows, stick figures, shapes, etc.

Sidenote: A lot of conversations got sidetracked to discussions about paper, fountain pens, the way I write, etc.

1. https://www.danroam.com

I LOVE this, exactly what I’ve been looking for.

Here’s the issue - all my meetings have confidential, sensitive info. I can’t use a version you host (or well, I could, but you won’t be willing to do the 6 month security review I need).

Can you give me a version I can host (or run locally) and I give you some $ one time or per year?

Love it, great idea. My humble advice: you’re on the top of HN right now—make it completely free. Overnight you could get some serious adoption (strike while the iron is hot!) Then build a few more features that people won’t be able to live without and THAT can be your paid tier.

Thanks for sharing it! What are the advantages of using the tool instead opening a simple google docs?

Hey a couple of bugs: 1. When I create an org it doesn't appear in the list until refresh. Then, one of the two orgs I made was created twice, or is somehow displayed twice.

As much as people like to criticize Microsoft Teams, it actually offers a feature called Facilitator [1][2][3] that, to my knowledge, works very well. I say this based on both my own experience and feedback from friends who use it in their day-to-day work.

That said, I, of course, always welcome competition.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoGOWOBicY

[2] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/facilitator-in-mi...

[3] https://aka.ms/facilitator

Already exists better to free and see the other one https://www.notetimeapp.com/diaries

The very first sentence in the "about" page has a typo (extra "and": ... meetings, and you <and> want to...):

You're in a ton of regular meetings, and you and want to take notes and actions to keep track of what's going on in them week to week.

Wait, do I overlook something or is it just a shareable text file?

Well to address the elephant in the room. There is no world that I wouldn’t or shouldn’t be automatically fired for putting notes between myself and my employer in a none approved website I found on the web.

I tried signing up with my email (Gmail), but the message with the sign-in code never arrived (it's not in the spam folder either). Maybe your email provider has hit its sending quota?

Nice! I've been looking for a lightweight version of notion for quick thoughts... And Google keep seems to be an abandoned project these days.

I think the positive reception of this product in the comments is down to how well the simplicity aspect of it has been executed. It does one thing and does it simply.

Nice concept! I wrote this tool a while back which provides a bit more structure to your 1:1s including bubbling up latest topic to the top - https://meeteffective.com/

Thanks for sharing! I like the clean interface. Does Docket have a feature to export all your notes into some file with one go? Assuming I would use the system for a couple of years, I'd prefer to have a (local) backup of all the notes I've written.

I've been using a Mead pen-based tablet with paper-like display for that. It has some disadvantages but it's been rock solid, no firmware patches or security exploits so far, and maintains state ridiculously long without needing battery recharges.

What does this add compared to Logseq's default journal view?

Interesting idea. The hardest part with systems like this is getting people to actually use them week after week. Curious how you solved the adoption problem.

This looks great.

Almost as good as Emacs Org mode. I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings. This way I can quickly navigate and edit the document, not just append to the end of it. And of course, Emacs is completely local.

I suppose there is supposed to be a collaborative element that Emacs won't provide. In my experience people in meetings already have workflows and are seldom interested in using the tool somebody else asks them to.

Thanks for sharing your work. I'm not sure I have a particular use for it at the moment, but it's well executed.

One point of (hopefully) constructive feedback is that it wasn't obvious from my first interaction with the temporary doc that I was able to create checklists and bullet points. Once I saw that those are possible, I quickly guessed the keystrokes, but it might be helpful to add some graphical guidance.

I like the concept but feel kinda dumb: how do I add an action?

I'd love a help button or keyboard shortcut to show keyboard shortcuts.

Thanks!

edit: I figured out the action, with putting [] first. But that was an educated guess based on some other comment here that said actions were checkboxes and me knowing more about Markdown than maybe your average meeting notetaker.

Really nice, reducing friction when note-taking is super valuable.

It's looking nice! Is it open-source?

I just use a notebook and a pencil. I can share select parts using email.

Chiming in to say I also love this app and will give it a try to see if it improves my workflow. Best of luck with it. This sort of small targeted saas is the dream.

This is really great, I love it already. I'm a convert from Google Note, which feels far inferior. Good luck with the project mate!

Not sure what the advantage is over Obsidian for personal notes and e.g. Notion for teams?

For some reason I can't paste my email address into the email address field when I try to sign up

Instead of taking the money you should be paying customers for giving you training data set

Why does it need to be on the web? Maybe I've missed something, can I run this locally?

I don’t want to put anybody down, but I don’t get this. What does this do that sai Apple’s Notes doesn’t? Or million other applications? And why on Earth is this hosted on web, this is something you clearly do not want to leave you device?

Also, I use pen and a notebook. It is better than anything electronic, since we are monkeys and using our eye-hand coordination has proven effects on concentration and learning.

feedback : my sign in code always gets "That code has expired. Please try again." error messages even if I received it mere seconds ago.

Personally I just take notes in Obsidian

Emacs org-mode is like this but 100x more powerful and it's just plain text and self-hosted.

But I agree with the other commenter about taking handwritten notes. I use pencil and paper and type them up into org-mode afterwards.

The best thing for this is pen and paper. Sophisticated mechanical hand movements associated with writing help memorize things much easier than pressing fingers on a keyboard.

We offer a notetaker specifically for 1-1s https://www.15five.com/blog/ai-meeting-assistant

Also shout-out to Attendee which is OSS for building meeting bots https://github.com/attendee-labs/attendee