"Senior people turn in to big babies at Board-type meetings and expect you to be able to control the temperature, the crappy IT, the cleanliness of the toilets, the weather, the transport system and carry around a huge supply of post-its, white boards and markers that you'd asked in advance if they needed them and they'd said no."
Never read anything so accurate in my life, @JollyJanuary 😂
Loads of good advice on this thread. I'm a governance professional (I know that's not your actual role but sounds like there's a lot of overlap) and I love it, but it's not for everyone.
If you have independent governors/trustees on your board (so external people), my best advice is to put the onus back on them for things like board papers, i.e. set up a simple SharePoint site or Team that you add the papers to a week in advance of a meeting. It can also have a section for maps/housekeeping/claiming expenses/conflicts of interest forms etc. this cuts down on email traffic and gently pushes trustees towards a slightly more self-sufficient model...
I'd also caution against using Outlook invites for external trustees/Govs - they sometimes have a habit of not receiving the invite and then claiming ignorance about all meetings...if you send out a very clear calendar months in advance (also available on the SharePoint site) and tell them to dispose according to that, they have to physically put the mtgs in their diaries (or their EAs do) and will note and clashes then. It's also then their responsibility to remember it!
For internal board members, i.e. exec directors, this is less of an issue as they're embedded in Outlook anyway and more likely to know what they're doing. The SharePoint site is still the way forward though!
Like others, I live and die by templates and checklists, and am fanatical about proof-reading. There's just no other way around it! I like a physical notebook but I also use OneNote and it's invaluable. I prefer my reminders etc to be in my.Outlook cal dad as I cns hen easily add emails/notes to them, for ref, and also share with other people. I do think it's generally best to do all of this kind of thing digitally, with a pad in front of you for ad hoc thoughts/questions/messages etc - notebooks are easy to lose and (I think) less easy to keep up to date.
Lastly I would say review your processes and procedures regularly - it may be that you're spending a lot of time and effort doing one particular thing (e.g. colour coding board papers/producing printed packs or similar) that isn't actually bringing much value, or doesn't have a net benefit - don't be afraid to review, ask for feedback and propose new and simpler solutions l. It's amazing how often something is done in a particular (long-winded) way just because it's always been done like that!